


Skin of the Beast

by AlulaSpeaks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Knotting, M/M, Sex with Sentient Animals, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 19:38:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlulaSpeaks/pseuds/AlulaSpeaks
Summary: Find Dean, find Jack, fix it. Sam's mission should be simple, but after a mysterious storm transforms ordinary people into hideous creatures, Sam finds himself struggling to hang onto his humanity and stay alive. Joined by an enormous wolf, Sam sets out across a new and dangerous landscape trying to  balance the draw he feels to the wolf and his need to complete his mission. Find Dean, find Jack, fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [La Piel de la Bestia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15116789) by [enteselene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enteselene/pseuds/enteselene)



> Many many thanks are owed to a lot of folks. First to [Nisaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nisaki) who didn't let a little thing like sleep stop her from beta reading. You were amazing and flexible and so encouraging, thank you! This is the first time I've written a story while having a network of folks to talk to. Apparently this turned me into a very, very needy writer. Thank you, writing group, for the discoussion, hand holding, and encouragement.
> 
> Finally, huge thanks to my artist, [Phoenix1966](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/) who was incredibly understanding when life threw some serious curve balls my way and who was super easy to work with and unfailingly kind. Please check out her [Art Masterpost](https://phoenix1966.livejournal.com/27398.html) and leave her some love. She designed the 3D model of Sam used in these images. How cool is that?

 

__

_I don’t know why I’m telling you this, tried that once before and now everyone looks at me like I’m something they stepped in. If I tell you my story, you’re going to think me a liar like the rest of them do. That’s the problem with people. It’s easier to call me a liar than to believe that someone you like has got something ugly inside of them, most especially if they can shake your hand and look you in the eye just like anyone else. Thing is, you can’t tell who someone is by looking at them.You may think you can, but you can’t. That’s a lesson we all got to learn._

...

Sam catches the diner door before it closes, but not before it rings the bell overhead. His jaw tenses, but the diner is mostly empty and even Sherrie, the woman he's been tailing since she slipped out of church early, doesn't note his entrance. He edges further inside, lingering in the doorway while he waits for Sherrie to pick her table.

He stalls long enough that he catches the waitress’s eye and she smiles blandly at him. “Sit anywhere you like, hon.”

Sam nods and settles into the booth by the door where he’s got a good view of Sherrie, even if the oncoming lunch rush fills in the tables between them.

The waitress slips out from behind the counter, stopping first at Sherrie’s table, then Sam’s with coffee and a menu. Sherrie wraps her hand around the small white mug and stares into the middle distance. Shadow circles hang under her eyes and strands of black hair slip from her messy bun to frame her round face. She doesn’t look like one of the slick heartbreakers that their ghost targets.

Sam’s gut tells him they’ve been fed bad intel. It’s always risky using the rumor mill to identify potential victims, but sometimes - especially in a small town like this one - it’s all there is. Still, Sam has no other leads and the ghost is due to strike tonight. He needs to be sure, and if Sherrie doesn’t pan out, the local diner isn’t a bad place to pick up another lead. If that fails, Dean might still come up with a positive ID on their ghost from the history professor a few towns over. Sam takes a sip of his coffee, weaker than Dean makes it but fresh and hot enough to be good, and settles in to wait.

Ten minutes later, a short woman with straw-colored curls hustles through the door and over to Sherrie’s booth. Stress lines smooth away from Sherrie’s eyes when her friend leans over to give her a hug, speaking low and soothing even though Sam can’t make out the words. He smiles and turns to look out the window, more certain now that Sherrie isn’t in any danger from their ghost.

Sam’s phone buzzes across the table, and he flips it over to see Dean’s name flashing across the screen.

“Hey,” Sam says, “got eyes on Sherrie, but I don’t think she’s the next target. She doesn’t fit the spirit’s MO. Were you able to catch up with Professor Jameson?”

“Yeah, you were right, our ghost’s gotta be Doc Brown.” Dean says.

“Great,” Sam sighs, “Now to figure out which of the basically illegible graves is his.”

“The prof says look for something with an Iris on it,” Dean says, something tight in his voice that makes Sam sit up straight, booth vinyl squeaking beneath him.

“What is it?” Sam asks.

“I’ve got a lead on Jack.”

“What? How?” Sam asks, loud enough to draw the waitress’s attention. She quirks an eyebrow at him, and Sam raises his hand in apology and hunches down over his phone.

“The prof. She rolled in this morning from visiting family. She mentioned some strange kid asking questions about everything, and it - I don’t know why but I showed her Jack’s picture.”

“And it was him,” Sam says. “We have to go get him before he disappears again.”

“Sam,” Dean says, that tightness back in his voice. “The town’s a couple hours northwest of here. If I come back for you…”

Sam clenches his fingers around his phone. Dean’s already three hours north. “If you come back for me then you could be six hours too late to find Jack and our ghost will take his next victim.” Sam tips his head back. He trusts Dean, he does, but even though he’s been better since they got a win under their belt, he’s still grieving, and Jack is still the symbol of that. But there’s no good choices here. If he boosts a car now and follows Dean’s tail, someone in this town is going to die tonight, and they can’t afford to lose Jack again. “Go, Dean. You have to go.”

“Alright.” Dean’s sigh travels down the line. “You torch Doc Brown I’ll keep Jack in one place long enough for you to catch up.”

“Call me when you find him, let me talk to him. And turn your phone’s GPS on,” Sam says.

“Already is,” Dean says, burst of static breaking his voice up. “Fucking lightning. I gotta go, see if I can outrun this storm.”

“Ok,” Sam says. “Just go easy on Jack, alright? He’s scared and he needs our help.”

“I know, Sam. I will if I can, but you’ve got to be ready if things go south. I’ve got to go.”

“Be careful,” Sam says to the click of the line disconnecting.

Sam scrolls through his apps, pulling up the map with Dean’s GPS and watches the red dot pull out onto Route 27, speeding north.

…

Sam wipes his hands with the thin paper napkin and tosses it on his plate. The low hum of conversation fills the diner and Sam leans back in the booth and lets it wash over him. Out on the street, people in their Sunday finery window shop, soaking up the late summer warmth.

Lightning flashes in the distance, green under the thick bank of clouds, cutting a black line across the horizon. A storm brewing that Sam would swear wasn’t there a minute ago. It’s is still distant but it’s rolling in fast from the northeast. There weren’t storms in the forecast, but Sam remembers Dean mentioning lightning. If this is that storm, it’s eaten up an incredible distance in that last hour or so.

"I think we're done for real, this time," Sherrie says, her voice cracking enough to draw Sam’s attention. He glances away from the distant storm front to see her slouched over her table, shredding the paper ring that held her silverware together.

"Oh, sweetie," her friend says, "Don's never been too good with emotions. He'll get over it."

"He called me cold-blooded," Sherrie says, rolling her eyes. "Can you believe it? So I said, 'well it's good thing you're used to a cold bed then, because it's about to get colder' and I stormed out. Cold-blooded. Me?" She scoffs and picks at the hangnail next to her thumb. "Maybe I am."

Sam taps his phone screen to wake it up, sees the red dot that is Dean frozen down a state road branching off 27. He refreshes the app, an anxious feeling building in his gut, as he glances back out the window to the slate gray cloudline cutting across the edge of town. The clouds soar into the sky, a roiling wall hundreds of feet high, oncoming wind picking up enough to bend the branches of the trees that line the street.

Out on the sidewalk a group of teenage boys break into raucous laughter. They cross the street to jostle elbows in front of the post office as the wind sends trash rolling down the street like tumbleweeds. A crushed soda can knocks into one of the kids ankles and he adjusts his red baseball cap before picking it up and testing its weight in his hand. He hurls the can at a stray dog lingering in the alley and the boys laugh again.

The waitress thunks the coffee pot on Sam’s table as she hustles by to stick her head out the door. “Hey! You knock it off now, leave that poor dog alone. Don’t make me call your Mama.”

The kid in the ball cap throws his hands up in indifferent surrender and the waitress makes her way back to Sam’s table. She picks up her carafe and raises it at him.

“Sure,” Sam says and pushes his cup closer.

“They’re not so bad.” She nods her head outside where the boys laugh as they shove each other. “It’s a small town, you know? They’ve got nothing better to do than play at being tough. Usually that means doing something stupid or something mean. Boys.” She sighs and shakes her head, “Imps more like.” She smiles at Sam and crosses to the counter to fill the cup of an old man bent over his crossword.

Another flash of lightning, a clash of thunder loud enough to shake the window panes, and people on the street stop and glance over their shoulders at the encroaching storm. The hairs on Sam’s arms stand on end.  When he looks back at the app, the red dot is gone. Sam’s stomach plummets. He refreshes it again, but the map remains empty.

A woman outside the diner screams as lightning strikes the street, her voice nearly drowned out by the deafening crack of thunder that follows. Sam leans over the table to get a closer look. A spark of green, like a static shock in the dark, jumps up from the singed pavement. First one, then another, then dozens more. People are too busy running for cover, and huddling under awnings to see them shoot along the street, vines of light doing what no lightning should be able to do once grounded.

It crackles across the pavement, striking first a man down the sidewalk, then a couple sheltering in the doorway of the pharmacy, the boys by the post office. They freeze and the lightning races on, leaping from the ground until one by one, everyone on the street falls still, no sound now but the constant growl of thunder and the racing wind.

For a long, breathless moment, nothing moves. The boys by the post office twitch and shake, vibrating in place as green sparks shoot from one into the other like an infection, and spread on until everyone is twitching like they’ve got the chitters. Another crack of thunder and lightning strikes right outside the diner and the power blinks out.

Sam’s breath catches in his chest, instinct driving him to jump up onto the booth, as if the vinyl of the seat can protect him from lightning that can travel through concrete and walls. The lightning races into the building along the floor, striking Sherrie and her companion, the man at counter, the waitress. The coffee carafe falls from her nerveless fingers to shatter on impact, the cook in the back gasps, and Sam’s own leg muscles contract and stiffen as the diner falls still.

Sam’s mind races, desperate for some kind of protection. He doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows it isn’t good. He needs something, anything. For one terrifying moment, Sam can’t move but after a breath his body jolts and the moment passes, his jacket thumps against his side, a soft weight in the pocket. He slips his hand inside, fingers tangling in a thin chord, bumping up against cool metal. The amulet. He doesn’t remember putting it there but he used to have a habit of stashing it close to hand and he’s never been more grateful for it. He slips it on over his head, closes his eyes for a second as it settles against his chest. He’d always believed, when he was a kid, that the amulet was meant to protect and he lets himself believe that that’s what it will do now.

When he opens his eyes, Sherrie is shaking in her seat. A spark of green jumps from her chest into her friend’s and she starts shivering too. Sam vaults over the back of the booth, grabbing for the door and pulling it open, but before he can escape, a bolt of static slams into his back, racing along his nerves. He’s been struck, and he doesn’t know what happens next, he just knows he doesn’t want it. Heart thudding wildly in his chest, Sam freezes as he grabs the amulet, clenches it in his fist, and tries to hold back the shaking, but it never comes. Sam breathes out a shaky sigh and presses the amulet gratefully into his chest.

“Maybe I…C-cold-blooded,” Sherrie says, breaking the silence and Sam’s eyes snap to her. She’s sitting in the booth, picking at her hangnail like nothing happened, but her mouth hangs half open, jaw working. Her fingers catch the hangnail’s edge and she pulls it back and back and back, keeps going, a whole strip of skin peeling back to her wrist. She drops the papery strip onto the table and goes back for another and Sam’s blood goes freezes in his veins because underneath her skin lies a network of keeled, dark green scales. “Cold… maybe, I...”  Her voice turns raspy, tongue flickering out and this time, the strip of skin she pulls back goes all the way to her elbow, scales slick and shining.

Other people in the diner are moving now, muttering under their breaths, muscles pulsing under their skin. Sam’s hands shake as he pulls open the door and bursts outside. On the corner, the boy in the red cap and his friends are already changed, gray and shrunken, humanoid still, but bald and long-limbed, and swimming in the too big clothes that barely cling to their shoulders. The red hat has fallen down over the boy’s eyes and he trips over the edge of the curb, making a hurt sound. He stumbles back to his feet with a limp and the other creatures hiss and stalk closer, surrounding him slow and predatory, grunts and growls passing between them as he cowers. With a whoop, they fall upon him, driving him into the ground tearing at his flesh.

Sam lurches forward, he should do something, but all around him people moan and shake and gurgle, their bodies morphing, skin falling away, and Sam slows to a stop. Everyone is changing, everyone. The power that must take is staggering. He’s only seen one thing like it before, the infection from the black cloud when Amara was released, but with her and Chuck gone, there’s only one other being in the whole universe with the power to do this. Jack. Him turning back up on their radar, the storm Dean mentioned, it can’t be a coincidence, and Sam knows bone deep that it’s him.

Sam glances down at the phone in his hand, black screened and unresponsive, but it doesn’t matter. He remembers where he last saw Dean on the map, now all he has to do is find him and to do that he’s going to need tools. Find Dean, find Jack, and fix this.

...

Sam weaves through the street keeping his eyes down and moving slow, trying not to draw any attention to himself as he makes the three block journey to the motel. Once he’s clear of main street he breaks into a jog, stumbling when the ground beneath his feet shakes. The rumble of noise resolves into the thunderous pounding of feet drawing closer from behind him. Sam glances over his shoulder. A dark shape, huge and black with rounded shoulders and a low-slung head, like a charging rhino, is hot on his trail. His heart beats triple time, adrenaline dumping into his system as he lengthens his stride, looks for an alley to duck down when another shape crashes through the storefront behind him. Its sleek gray body racing past as glass patters against Sam’s back.

The charging creature turns to follow its new prey and Sam doesn’t look back. He makes it to the motel in two minutes flat. There’s a car in the lot with its door hanging open and the keys in the ignition. A gray blazer hangs from the open door, a purse tumbled to the ground with its contents spilling out, but otherwise the place appears to be empty.

Sam slips into the driver’s seat and tries the keys. Nothing. Not even a cough. It’s a newer model car, highly reliant on computer systems, and as dead as the powergrid, and Sam’s cell phone. Sam tries two more cars in the lot, stripping wires and hoping for a spark, but there isn’t one hint of life in any of them. Sam closes his eyes and takes a slow breath. Getting to Dean just got a whole lot harder.

Inside the room, Sam roots through his duffel in the half-light of the open door, pulling out the sheathed machete he keeps there and clipping it onto the waist of his pants. He dumps out everything he won’t need, assorted IDs a few bad ties, his suit, leaving only a few changes of clothes, a couple knifes, and the extra clips for his gun. His gun slips easily into the spot at the small of his back, a familiar and comforting weight. He searches through Dean’s duffel next, patting down the side pockets tossing out a pair of mud crusted socks in a plastic bag, cringing guiltily when he finds Dean’s lube and a couple expired condoms in the bottom of a zip pocket, but it’s worth it when he finds Dean’s spare silver pocket knife and a disposable lighter.

There’s a camping supply store off a highway exit a few miles on the other side of town. If Sam has to walk the more than 300 miles to find his brother and Jack, he’s going to need some equipment and something better than his duffel to carry it in. He slings the duffel over his shoulder and scans the room for anything else he can use.

A shadow falls across the doorway, darkening the room and the muscles in Sam’s back tense. Something breathes raggedly from behind him. Sam turns slow, hands out by his sides. A woman in gray trousers stands at the threshold, her mouth and chin stretched into a curved beak, feathers pushing out from her skin along her brow and neck. She’s missing one shoe and her foot is misshapen, a huge talon protruding from her big toe, patches of scales catching the light, her eyes huge and wild in her face.

“Take it easy,” Sam says, one hand outstretched, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Her beak clacks and she tilts her head, coming further into the room. “I know you’re freaked out, but let me pass, and I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make this right.”

She swipes at Sam, and he ducks under her arm, spinning in a low crouch to keep his eye on her as he backs toward the door. Her beak opens around an ear splitting scream and she lunges for him. Sam bolts for the door, swinging it closed behind him and leaning into it. The door rattles, vibration jolting through Sam’s spine as she slams into it, screeching. The sound more human when muffled by the door, mournful and terrified. Sam swipes his hair back from his face and pushes off from the door. He needs to get supplies and get moving.

He steals a blue and green bike from someone’s yard on the outskirts of Main Street. It’s too small for him by far, but it’s faster than walking. He skirts the edge of town, sense on high alert as he listens to the chaos. Screams and wails, whoops and a rasping roar. Shattering glass. He pedals faster, not stopping and not looking back.

…

Sam ditches the bike in the empty parking lot and pulls the door open to the store, dropping his duffel off to the side.

“Oh hey,” the clerk says, popping up from behind the counter. His shoes snap sharply against the floor, like high heels on linoleum. “I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m just having some trouble with the cash register.”

Sam moves farther into the store, scanning the isles for other patrons. Other people who might be something else, now.

“You see that storm?” Sam asks.

“Huh?” the guy says, vowel drawn out, long and quavering.

“That green lightning,” Sam says, risking a step closer, “did you see it?”

The guy doesn’t look up from where the cash drawer is stuck half open and he’s fiddling with the key one-handed. He brings his other hand up and it clangs against the metal drawer and Sam’s stomach turns.

The clerk’s fingers are fused together, his skin black and ridged, hardened. He brings it up in front of his face, twisting his wrist back and forth with a detached look of confusion in his eyes. The fingers of his other hand move strangely, stiff and grouped together as he pokes at his skin where it joins the keratinous shell of his new hoof.

“Hu-uh?” he says again, and this time, Sam can hear the bleat in it.

He steps back from the counter edge and his feet clack against the floor. Sam swallows the bitter taste in the back of his throat, because a discarded pair of sandals sticks out from behind the counter. The guy isn’t wearing shoes.

The clerk looks up at Sam, eyebrows drawing together. “That’s not right,” he says, tongue slow and thick, voice garbled.

His dark eyes glaze over, dull and glassy, pupils stretched into vertical slits, and his arms fall limp by his sides. He stumbles out from behind the counter, shoulders hunched with the _pop pop pop_ of his spine realigning. White fur bristles along his arms, his clothes tearing at the seams. Racks of clothes topple as he falls to all fours, bucking wildly as the tattered remains of his shirt and jeans fall from his body. He bolts for the door, Sam catching a glimpse of his still hairless face, jaw elongated and black horns bursting from his forehead.

He slams into the door frame, cracks spider webbing in the glass as the door swings open and he runs out into the parking lot. He looks back once, column of his neck unnaturally long and twisted over his shoulder. Sam doesn’t move until he’s gone from view, disappearing into the trees.

Sam moves farther into the store, eyes flickering to the security camera before he remembers the power is out. He heads back first to the corner where the hiking backpacks hang in neat rows. He sorts through the brightly colored packs until he finds a gray one with a large enough capacity and enough padding to be comfortable over long distances. He spends the ten minutes it takes to adjust the frame to his height, adjusting the length of the shoulder straps and making sure the hip belt sits right above his hip bones. He empties his duffel, stowing the weapons where they’ll be easy to reach and shoving his spare clothes in the bottom.

Sam works his way through the store, grabbing water bottles, a water filter and iodine tabs, a sleeping bag. He reaches for a tent but it’s extra weight and Sam’s slept rough plenty of times before. Besides, something about the idea of being inside that tent, unable to see what’s coming for him makes the hair on his arms stand up. He finds a sturdy canvas tarp instead, folding it up and lashing it to the outside of the bag with the p-cord he grabs from the wall. Finally he raids the dry food section, grabbing protein bars, and jerky, and trail mix, stashing them into the outside front pouch.

He sets his gear on the display case that serves as the counter. It’s hundreds of dollars of equipment. Sam steps back and swipes his hand back through his hair, a guilty twist to his mouth. He’ll come back. When he fixes things, he’ll come back and pay for what he took… with his fake credit card. Shit, he’s being so stupid. Theft or fraud the store will have insurance for that. He’s not thinking clearly, letting himself get rattled.

He takes a deliberate breath and the pinboard behind the counter catches his eye. On it are pictures of the employees outside, active, and grinning wide for the camera, with their names in cheerful script below. He spots the clerk, in a harness and helmet, chalk on his fingers as he hangs from a cliffside, one fist raised and smiling triumphantly. His name was Grant. Is Grant. Is. Because there has to be a way to set this right.

Sam swallows thick and looks away. He needs to focus. Find Dean, find Jack, fix it. He spots a rack of maps next to the counter and fishes through them until he finds a Wisconsin Gazetteer. It’s got the roads marked out clearly and topographic lines that show the terrain, so he brings it back and sets it on the counter. He pages through until he finds a section that has both this town and the last spot he saw Dean, and rips out the pages.

The case beneath the counter is full of compasses and multi-tools. He walks behind the counter, pulling the keys from the stuck register drawer and flips through them until he finds the one to unlock the case. He pulls out one of the heavier compases and flicks it open to check that the needle spins freely.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, a sliver of his own reflection, and his breath stoppers in his throat. He flinches, drops the compass as though burnt. He judders back a step, elbow knocking over the sunglasses display. They pinwheel across the counter, the display clattering to the ground to shatter against the tile. Sam doesn’t hear a whisper of it over the rush of blood _whumping_ in his ears.

Everywhere Sam looks, in the dark face of each lense, in the finger-smudged glass of the counter, his reflection waits. Hazy and too indistinct to be sure. But Sam knows. Maybe he’s always known.

He reaches for the compass, gun hand steady as a rock, and flips open the case to see his face in the mirror. Yellow eyes.

Sam snaps the compass shut, swallows the bitter taste in the back of his throat. He makes a blind grab for a pair of sunglasses from the countertop, some barely tinted pair of aviators, and fumbles them on because even that will be enough so he doesn’t have to see it again. He wraps one fist around amulet, squeezes until it is a blunt point of pain, until all other pain fades away. When he can breathe again, when his mind is still, Sam tucks the compass into his pack, grabs his gear, and makes for the empty parking lot.

It isn’t until he picks up the bike that he realizes the parking lot is too empty. No car or bike for Grant. Sam abandons the bike walks around the side of the building, and there, parked behind the dumpster is an old model Ford sedan. From the ‘60s or ‘70s. Dean would know the year and model, but all Sam cares about is that it’s old enough not to be entirely dependent on a computer.

It’s obvious Grant cared for it, was working to restore it. The only apparent flaw the spot of rust in the middle of the hood. Sam thinks about breaking a window or jimmying the lock, but he remembers Grant’s clothes abandoned inside the store. He goes back, fishes through his pockets and comes back with a set of keys.

He unlocks the doors, rolls all four windows down and sets his pack in the back. He tosses the map in the front seat and holds his breath as he slides the keys into the ignition. The engine stutters, more life than he’s heard yet. It’s rattling slows, and then with a shuddering growl, it turns over.

“Yes,” Sam says, smacking his palm against the wheel. It’s only got a half tank of gas, but it’s something. It’s more than he had before.

...

Sam siphons what gas he can from the cars around a gas station outside of town. He finds a gas can in the store and a hose in the work closet that serve him well. By the time his car is full, he still has half a can full. He sets it in the trunk pushed carefully into the corner where it won’t spill. When he settles back in the driver’s seat, he notices that the spot of rust has more than doubled in size and his stomach sinks, bad feeling creeping in.

He keeps the speedometer between fifty and sixty five, trying to use the gas as efficiently as he can, though it’s tempting to drive faster along the empty roads. The car eats up the miles with relative ease, but every twenty miles or so it shivers and the small patch of rust spreads, growing in ridges across the hood like mold.

Sam grabs the map from the passenger seat and props it up against the steering wheel. He lets his foot ease off the gas, car slowing as he glances down checking his position. He’s gone a good 200 miles and the gas tank still hasn’t hit empty. He’s memorizing his next turn when a huge shape lumbers through the hedge on the left side of the road.

Sam slams on the breaks. The car swerves and bucks under him, comes to an abrupt stop. There are three of them, two as big as the Ford, one smaller. A family. They don’t even glance in his direction. Their solid bodies are covered in thick, twisting fur, trunk-like legs swinging slowly as they walk. Their necks are long and decurved, faces flat and round like sloth’s. They cross the road inches from Sam’s bumper.

The small one looks up as they pass Sam, gaze catching directly on his, their dark eyes full of a sorrowful awareness. Sam’s fingers clench around the steering wheel and he looks closer, deeper, until his eyes ache behind his sunglasses. There, inside the little one is a flicker of light, buffeted by wind. As he watches in stunned stillness, the lead creature lows quietly and the light in the small one flashes out, eyes glazing over and head sinking back to stare at the ground. Sam watches until they cross into the field, but the little one never looks up and the light does not come back.

The car sputters and dies three miles down the road on the steep slope of a hill. Sam jumps on the break with both feet to keep it from rolling backwards and throws the car into park. He rides out the little spike of adrenaline with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and thunks his head back against the seat. He had hoped to make it another sixty miles before the car gave out. A full canister of scavenged gas still waits in the trunk. Useless now. Sam takes a deep breath and starts running numbers in his head.

The car jerks, rocking in its shocks, and Sam’s eyes snap open. The ridges of rust on the hood ripple, bristle like the fur of a cornered cat. With an ear-splitting screech, a spire of red metal shoots from the guts of the car and punches through the hood, stabbing three feet into the open air. Sam throws open the door, grabbing the map and water bottle from the front seat and scrambling out.

The car shudders again, metal groans. The hood heaves and settles. Silence falls and Sam takes a tentative step forward. The car bucks. A grinding crunch, a shiver, and a spike of metal screams through the hood, then another and another and another. Sam cringes back and covers his ears. When it’s over, the hood is a pincushion of spines. The air smells of iron and fresh-cracked rock. Red flakes of rust float down like snow.

Sam covers his nose and mouth, stepping back until he’s out of range. He watches the flakes fall against the road, thinking of metal spikes growing in his lungs like tall tales of swallowed watermelon seeds and twisting vines.

He counts thirty seconds, and when nothing happens, he darts forward, hauling his pack through the back window. He backs away to the far side of the road, eyes on the car, but it’s still now. It looks like it’s been there for years, like one of the ancient wrecks from Bobby’s scrap yard but for the spires of metal, its malformed shadow shivering on the nodding roadside grass.

Sam shoulders his pack, clips the waist and chest straps, and tightens the shoulder straps until the weight rests across his hips. A sky blue ranch house sits off the road at the crest of the hill, and Sam makes his way towards it. He glances back one last time, down the road and past the ruined Ford.

In the distance, dark in the orange evening light, the dim shapes of the three shaggy creatures trudge on, their huge bulks cutting trails through the golden grass. Their long necks sway side to side as they walk, faces turned towards the ground.

...

The house is dark and the driveway is empty. Even with the glare of the evening sun on the windows, Sam can see the curtains are drawn. he pops open the mailbox, pulling out a pile of letters and checking the postmarks. The oldest is from three days ago, a couple days worth of mail at least. The family is probably on vacation, maybe up on one of the lakes for a long weekend. An empty house means no surprises and a safe place to sleep.

Sam makes his way up the drive, but with every step closer, something in his chest coils a notch tighter until his skin starts to crawl. At the threshold he scans the area, and puts his ear against the door but he hears nothing, so he drops to his knees and picks the lock. The second he steps inside his heart starts racing, sweat dripping down his back and the walls tightening around him until his breath squeezes in his throat. He’s never been claustrophobic before, but now he can’t stand the thought of being hemmed in, trapped. He catches the door before it can close, rushing outside where the wide open skies fill his lungs with fresh air and the dizziness fades away.

As he stands there, staring at the house in confusion, the curtains over the bay window twitch. Something long and thin trails along the edge of the window, another joins it, slipping in front of the curtain and feeling along the edge of the glass. Vines from the house plant on the window ledge. Sam backs away from the house. He will find no rest there.

Once he’s back to the road, Sam lays out his map on the black-top, crouching over it. He traces down Route 27 and marks his location. There’s no sense sticking to the road now that he’s on foot, so he folds the edge of the map in until it cuts a straight line from his location to the place where Dean’s GPS quit working and traces the line and uses it to set the bearing on his compass. It’s seventy, seventy-five miles away. That’s two and a half, three days of travel depending on how hard Sam pushes and how many obstacles put themselves in his way. The sun is still above the horizon so Sam raises his hand, uses the span of his fingers to judge the time until sunset. About an hour and fifteen minutes. That’s four miles easy and there’s a ridge about that far along Sam’s path that will give him high ground to camp on.

New plan in mind, Sam sets out, long stride eating up the distance and face turned determinedly forward. Sam finds a spot on the ridge with a good view of the meadows and fields below and debates how he wants to set up his camp. He has a flashlight in his bag, but he has no intention of using it if it can be avoided. Sometimes a flashlight does more harm than good. It only gives you a narrow field of view, steals away your night vision, and makes you visible for miles. Sam doesn’t need to be attracting attention, especially not when he’ll have enough light to see with the full moon drawing close. It’s the fire where he’s stuck. It has the same downside as a flashlight, but fire acts as a deterrent too, at least, it does for normal animals. There’s really no knowing how these new creatures will react.

That thought derails Sam, makes his hands fist at his sides and his heart ache. He thinks of the little creature on the road, watching its light flicker out. He should have done something, but he has no idea what. All those people suddenly turned into something else, most of them knowing nothing of how strange their world truly is. How lost they all must have been, how afraid as their humanity slipped away from them. Sam has dealt with the loss of humanity before, has put down many monsters that were once human. Not this time. He won’t write off hundreds, maybe thousands of people. They were human and if he does everything right, if he can reach Jack, they may be again.

In the end, the desire to sleep with some protection makes up Sam’s mind. He clears a circle of ground down to bare dirt and edges it with stones he finds among the tree roots. When the fire is lit, Sam sits beside it and watches the sun sink below the horizon. The orange glow in the western sky burns bright along the edges of the clouds and fades into quiet pinks and purples as darkness seeps in. Not one light turns on, not one promise of human life out in all that murky dark.

A long, trembling wail rises from a distant field to the north, carried on the breeze as it rises in pitch and volume, harsh and sharply edged. The crickets stop calling and the night holds its breath. The call dies out on a low grunt. The crickets pick up their song taking the new night sound in stride, but Sam waits, shoulders up by his ears, back a knot of tension.

Another wail breaks out, this time from the east. Closer, but still distant. It reaches its peak when a new sound pierces through the night. A howl. The wail cuts off, the crickets stop calling, the night falls into abrupt silence but for the wolf’s howl. Sam’s body snaps to attention, leaning forward over his bent knees as his eyes snap to the northwestern horizon. Goosebumps race up his arms as the howl carries on for breathless moments, discordant and rich, the bass of it trembling from the earth, more powerful than any wolf Sam has heard before.

When it dies out, no sound rushes in to fill the void, and the silence persists long into the night. Sam doesn’t fall asleep until the crickets begin their calls, one by one breaking the expectant quiet. His last hazy thought that somewhere out there, in the direction Sam must go, the wolf waits in the shadows.


	2. Chapter 2

__

_Mom used to bring me out here when my Dad got sick. She said it was a magic place, that something special happened at dusk when winter came calling. I think she just needed to get out of the house, but I ain’t ashamed to say I believed her. We were sitting right here the first time I saw them. They came swooping out of the pines with these long, pale wings. I thought they were ghosts. I remember squeezing my mom’s hand so hard. But I wasn’t scared. It was like they were dancing. I found out later that they were owls out hunting over the fields. I didn’t know owls could be like that. Thought they sat around in trees blinking those big eyes. Should’ve known then that you get taught all sorts of backwards things. Nothing is simple and nothing is exactly what it’s supposed to be._

...

Sam’s sleep is fitful and edged with fever. He half wakes in the night, back aching, and rolls onto his stomach. The muscles above his shoulder blades twitch and contract painfully. A thrum of energy passes into his body from the earth and the blackness behind Sam’s eyes pulses with it, seizing his lungs. Sam struggles for a breath, mind still in that indistinct place between sleep and wakefulness, and flops back onto his back, eyes snapping open.

As he breathes, his mind calms and the feeling passes away like a dream. He lays on his back, staring woozily at the trees above for sometime before he notices the huge yellow eyes watching him through the branches. An owl of a species he has never seen before watches him from the branch of an oak. It’s pale body creamy in the firelight. Dark mottling of its feathers is sparse across its belly but gets thicker until it blends into its wings. Its face is round, white half-moons frame its pale face and the deep set black feathers that smudge out from its yellow eyes like day-old eye shadow.

Sam drifts back to sleep marvelling that yellow eyes could ever be beautiful. He falls into a deeper sleep, dreams shifting into something softer. He dreams of a forest bathed in morning light after a night of rain. So much like a memory from when Dad took them into the backcountry for survival training. The rain battered their tent all night and in the morning the world was washed new. Sam stepped out into a thousand filaments of light, hanging from the trees, dripping through the thick fog of steam rising from the sun warmed earth. The musty sweetness of decaying logs and the delicate scent of spring flowers rising with it, and everywhere the sound of birdsong. Dean sliding out from the tent to stand beside him, breathing deep, and Sam had felt, for a moment, that the world was wide and beautiful and that he was meant to stand witness to it just as any other creature of the earth. This dream smells the same, feels the same, but in it he is running. Something moves with him, not chasing but beside him, its body curling and uncurling in an elegant and tireless lope. The muscles in Sam’s legs are warm and full of strength, his lungs stretch and fill effortlessly. He could run forever like this and never tire and never be alone.

When he wakes, the dream lingers in his mind, calling him back toward sleep, but his body aches and he knows he can't afford to linger. Morning light filters through the trees, slips across Sam’s eyelids in shimmering fragments. Sam stretches in his bedroll and tests the lingering ache in his back, the broken fever feeling of watery muscles. He slits his eyes open, one slice of the finely barked tree beside him tinted faintly yellow and he slams them closed again. Feels around blindly for the sunglasses waiting by his rolled up sweatshirt and puts them on.

Sam fishes out a power bar, stowing his gear between bites. He remembers the owl as he drains his first water bottle dry. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and looks up into the branches of the maple. The branch where it perched last night is both higher and thicker than Sam had realized in the night. Judging by the width of the branch, the owl must have stood at least three feet tall. Another creature. Sam rubs his hands across his forehead and takes a steadying breath. He’s lucky all it did was watch.

The slope directly below Sam's camp is rocky and steep, too steep to traverse safely. Sam has a long road ahead of him and now is not the time for risks. About ten minutes west along the bluff's edge he finds a deer track leading down through the underbrush. It cuts back and forth along the bluff, but is well trodden and wide enough for Sam to walk on. He makes his way down, picking his footing carefully. When he makes it to the bottom of the bluff, he walks back along the sandstone walls, looking up until he is directly below his camp site. A pale shape glides through the trees above, following the ridge until it passes into shadow and away. The owl from the night before, perhaps. Waiting and watching. Following Sam's progress.

Sam pats the machete on his belt, and the gun in the side pocket of his pack. He scans the woods above and the meadow below but the owl does not reimmerge. Finally, he grabs the compass from his pocket, checks the bearing and picks out an anchor point in the distance.

He pulls the map from the side pocket of his pack and checks it against his line of travel. His path takes him across a rolling meadow, and then into a patch of woods that will take him hours to cross.

By mid morning Sam has refilled both water bottles at a small creek, plowed through a bag of trail mix, and travelled deep into the woods. And he's picked up a shadow. At first he thought it was the owl, glimpses of something pale in the woods behind him, but it's low to the ground and he's caught - just once - the sound of feet against the forest floor.

Sam moves the gun from the side pocket, checks the safety is on, and squeezes it between the strap and padding on the pack’s hip belt, but he presses forward. Whatever it is, it’s fast and quiet, and will not be drawn out so easily. For the next hour the forest behind him is still but for the call of songbirds and the rustle of the breeze. He sees nothing of his shadow, though he is certain it still follows.

He comes to a small clearing in the forest, thick with tangled rose. In the center, where the sun shines down in shafts of honeyed light, stand two deer. Their heads swivel toward Sam. Ears pricked forward and twitching restlessly, their dark eyes focused on him, bodies held in perfect stillness. As one, their heads jerk to Sam's side, attention focused behind him and the coiled tension in their bodies snaps. They spring into a run, white tails held high behind them as they bound through the brambles, racing further into the woods.

Sam glances back. He sees nothing, but the wind is at his back and he wonders if they caught the scent of his stalker on the air. He turns back just in time to see the deer through a gap in the trees. The lead dear rears back, snorting in sudden fear and they nearly collide, the one behind skidding, back legs wheeling as they struggle to make an abrupt turn and speed away to the west.

Sam's gut clenches with unease. Ahead through the trees, an incongruous flash of pink. Pink like a nurse's scrubs. Something not of the forest. For a second hope flares in Sam's gut, another person, but the silence of the forest and the desperate speed of the deer unsettle him, and his focus shifts from what follows him to what might lie in wait ahead.

...

Over the next two miles, Sam’s shoulders draw progressively tighter. Flashes of movement, the muffled snap of twigs, and the growing tension in the air tells him that he has swept something else into his wake. This one is smaller than the first. It’s good at not being seen, but louder and less skilled at general stealth. It keeps its distance. There's no way Sam can get a clear shot in the woods. He needs to pick his spot, make sure the confrontation that is coming happens on his terms.

The the trees thin out in the distance, glimpses of prairie grass and blue sky between them, and Sam is running out of time. If they're going to attack, they won't let him get out in the open. He needs to find a place and he needs to find it now. His blood starts pumping faster, muscles trying to tense up further, but he forces them loose and keeps going.

Only a hundred yards or so from the edge of the woods, Sam spots a low stone wall, remnants of some ancient farm’s boundaries. Behind the wall, so close its bark scrapes against it, stands an old willow tree, wider than Sam could wrap his arms around. It's the closest he'll get to having something solid at his back. The forest thins out around and behind the wall, providing less cover for something to sneak up on him, and a better chance at a clear shot. The wall promises him high ground if he needs it. It's better than he hoped for.

He makes his way to the tree, senses stretched to limits as he plays at being oblivious to the fact that he's being hunted. He takes the gun from the hip belt, places it on the stone wall, pulls out a water bottle and protein bar form the left pouch and sits on the wall, easing the pack down to lean against it.  Something watches him. Its attention a heavy weight sliding over him, but he hears no movement. He takes advantage of the stillness to drink some water, grab a couple bites. He stretches out his legs, shakes out his ankles, looks like he is shaking off the aches of a long walk but really he's just trying to keep loose and ready.

He finishes the bar, drinks half the water bottle and still nothing has happened. It occurs to him that he's being paranoid, but he knows what being hunted feels like. He just doesn't know what they're waiting for. Time to try to force their hand.

"So," Sam calls, voice loud enough to carry over the cicadas, "why don't we get this over with?"

He doesn't really expect anything to happen, doubts what’s following him will understand, but still he waits. A bird startles from the tree above him, flies deeper into the trees. Sam's eyes flick up to follow it and when he looks back down, there's a woman sitting on a log thirty feet away from him.

"I guess it's about time," she says.

She's dressed in khaki pants and a light pink blouse, sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms, collar sharp and neatly pressed, like she stepped out of the country club but for the mud on her sensible suede shoes and splattered up her shins. And the long, gray spike protruding from her wrist.

“Wraith,” Sam says.

"Now, how did you know a thing like that?" She’s looking at him, but not in the face, eyes locked somewhere on the side of his neck, up high, behind his jaw, her attention making the fine hairs stand on end.

"It's my job to know."

"Hunter. Of course." Her lip curls, and her head twitches, a splotch of gray bleeds out from her neck, up her chin, over her mouth, patches of rot framing a riot of cracked and jagged teeth that force her lips to part. It slides up over her face like a patch of dappled light through the trees, moving across her eye, a swath of her hair turning lank and tangled, as it washes over her and passes away leaving her in her human skin again. “You’ve seen it?” She gestures to her face and then out to the rest of the world. “What that storm did?”

“I’ve seen it,” Sam says. "Where'd you come from?"

"Hundred miles or so west. Had a car. Didn't run for long. You?"

"Southeast about 200 miles." Sam’s stomach sinks; that makes at least three hundred miles changed. The storm must have been moving like a wave, or a ripple from one focal point.  At the speed it was moving, who knows how far it went. Where it stopped.

She hums and rolls her wrist until the joint pops, her skin ripples, turns gray, sags from the bone, the spike catches in a patch of light, glints wickedly. “You know, since it started, I haven’t been able to put this thing away. Can’t even keep this form for long. That’s never happened before. You in a town when it happened?”

“Listen, nothing has to happen here” Sam says.

She hums again, ignoring Sam as she stares down at the spike. “Then you saw what it was like. People who’d been trading gossip over their morning coffee one minute were tearing each other apart the next. Seemed more honest, didn’t it?” She looks up again and the whole left side of her face is putrid gray skin. “Seems to me things are getting shown for what they are. All that shiny veneer getting wiped off, the world reminding us we’re all one kind of animal or another.”

“I think I might know what caused this,” Sam says, “maybe even how to fix it.”

"This is a funny situation for a hunter, don't you think? I always thought normal was a numbers game. Humans weren’t monsters ‘cause there were more of them, you know? Now the whole world is full of creatures and here you are still human." She tilts her head back, sniffs the air. "Only one I’ve smelled since this whole thing started. You’re outnumbered. Think that makes you the monster, now?”

There’s something unnerving about the way she breezes right over what Sam is saying, like she can’t even hear it, and the way her eyes look him over all hungry assessment, but she won’t look at his face. Sam’s heart races and he gets slowly to his feet, “You need to walk away. I’m the only one who has a shot of fixing this.”

"Not so fast," she says and holds her hand out in a placating gesture as she stands, takes a slow step forward. "Do you know what happens to a wraith when we’re starving? We go crazy with it - feral is the word I think.”

Sam tenses up, scans around him again but the forest is still, not even a bird singing.

“And we aren’t your bargain bin vampire or werewolf. We can’t just switch our diet in a pinch, and that makes you pretty special.  You’re the only fast food joint for a thousand miles.”

“You aren’t listening,” Sam snaps, reaching into his pocket and flipping open the silver knife. “You want to have a snack now and starve later?”

“Hunters,” she says, finally looking Sam in the eye and the hatred there makes Sam’s fist clench around the knife. “You make everything so damn hard. Only way we survive together is if we take turns eating. And look what that got us.” Her eyes flicker to Sam’s left and Sam springs into motion.

He spins right, something stirring the hair by his ear, glimpse of gray from the corner of his eye, the angle of attack all wrong because of the fallen log and the tree at Sam’s back. Sam jumps up on the log, kicks back at the wraith charging at him, catchers her square in the face and she falls back, groaning.

He drops down on the other side of the log and finds himself face to face with the one that attacked him from behind. No facade left on this one, only a gray slavering maw in a ruined face, his eyes half-glazed and wild as he advances, swinging mindlessly. Sam parries the first strike and the second, knocks them wide with the flat of his palm. He catches it on the forearm on the next swip and it cries out, skin sizzling. It stumbles back and Sam flips his knife, ready to advance when he’s grabbed from behind by inhumanly strong arms. Snugged up tight to the other wraith’s chest, his arms pulled back and her face tucked into his neck.

“Look at him,” she hisses, “half starved already ‘cause of the way you make us live. I can’t afford to wait. If there’s one of you then there are more and we’ll find them. But first, we need a top off.” She pulls her face away, tenor of her voice changing. “C’mon baby, time to eat.”

The other wraith staggers forward eyes locked on that same spot on Sam’s neck, saliva dripping from his mouth, close enough now that the smell of rot fills Sam’s nose.

A snarl breaks through the clearing and a white shadow dashes through the undergrowth, leaping at the wraith advancing on Sam. A flash of fur and teeth is all Sam sees as they tumble out of view. Surprise makes the wraith’s grip loosen and Sam surges back, drives her into the tree behind him with all his strength. Her breath whooshes out of her head thunking back into the bark. Sam breaks her hold, smashes his palm into her sternum so she can’t get a breath, follows it up with a knife to the heart.

Sam spins, bloody knife at the ready to see a wolf pinning the other wraith to the ground. A frisson of primal fear races down Sam’s spine, the wolf is enormous, nearly as long as Sam is tall, his massive head bent over the wraith where his teeth sink deep into his shoulder. The wraith twists and snarls, striking out with his spikes and slicing a red line across the wolf’s cheek. The next strike nearly takes the wolf’s eye and it yelps, shaking Sam from his stupor.

Sam runs to the wolf’s side, skidding to a stop in the leaves, pinning one of the wraith’s flailing arms under his knee. He drives the knife down into the wraith’s chest, but it glances off a rib, missing the heart. He strikes again, both hands behind the knife, rib snapping under the force, blade striking true.

The wraith goes still in the wolf’s jaws and he drops it and backs away, ears turned back, sleek head bent low. His eyes focused on the bloody knife in Sam's hand.

"Hey," Sam says, steady and low, some of his earlier fear slipping away in the face of the wolf’s caution. He’s taller than Sam when he’s crouched like this, finely muscled, and powerful enough to take Sam out with one snap of its jaws, and yet here he is, treating Sam as if he has the power. Sam flips his grip on the knife so the blade hangs down, thumb holding it loose against his palm. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." Sam knee walks away from the dead wraith, sets the knife on the ground, and sits down cross-legged. "See, nothing to worry about."

The wolf cocks his head, his ears relaxing just a bit. His golden eyes are striking against the gray and white of his face. The gray runs down his back, along his spine and tail and fades into the pure white of his flanks and legs. Sam adjust his sunglass and looks again, deeper, and there inside is his light. Not flickering, but steady. This person may have been turned into a wolf, but inside, they're still very much human.

"Thanks for the help. You saved my ass." Sam smiles at the wolf and he sits back on his haunches, his ears pricking forward. "I can tell that you understand me, that you’re still you. I mean, uh, mentally at least.” The wolf snorts and Sam cringes. That wasn’t the most tactful way to say that. “Listen, I know you must be confused, but I think I know how this happened, and I’m going to do everything I can to set it right. Me and my brother, Dean, it’s our job to deal with stuff like this. Once I find him, we’re going to find the kid who did this and convince him to fix it. So just...stay safe until then. No more heroics, ok?”

The wolf’s brow is furrowed, staring hard at Sam, but it doesn’t move so Sam takes that as tacit agreement. Sam grabs the silver knife, slips it into his pocket, and gets slowly to his feet. He backs away until he reaches his pack. He turns around to put it on and when he turns back, the wolf is standing beside him. His size is even more striking now, his head coming up to Sam’s ribcage.

“Are you… Do you want to come with me?” The wolf nods once, sharply and Sam gestures to the dead wraiths. “It’s dangerous. There could more things like those out there. Or worse.” The wolf nods again.

Sam swipes his hair back from his face, mouth pressing into a thin line. This close, Sam can see that the wounds on the wolf's face have already stitched closed, but that doesn't mean Sam wants to put him on harm's way again. “Listen, I don’t think-”

The wolf barks, cutting Sam off. He rolls his eyes and then jumps over the log, making for the edge of the woods. He looks back at Sam once, brow raised as if to say, “you coming?” before stepping out into the field and leaving a stunned Sam behind him.

“You don’t even know where we’re going” Sam calls out, stepping over the log and pulling out his compass and map because as it turns out, he doesn’t know either.

Over the next five miles the last of the tension bleeds from Sam. He’s been keeping an eye on the wolf, looking inside and relieved to find the light steady every time, the wolf’s grip on himself solid. They fall into a surprisingly easy rhythm, and it’s a relief to have someone to travel with.

...

Sam stops near a lonely cluster of houses to eat a few protein bars. The wolf’s stomach growls and Sam looks down at the bar, wrinkling his nose. “Don’t know if you can even eat these,” he says and holds it out for the wolf who smells it cautiously. The way the wolf’s lip curls tells Sam everything he needs to know about that. A rustle from a nearby hedge has them both tensing, until Sam spots the white tail of a rabbit sitting in a clover patch. The wolf’s ears turn forward, and he drops into a low crouch, eyes intent on the rabbit. He takes two slinking steps forward when the rabbit turns, clover flowers hanging from its mouth and nose twitching as it chews. The wolf pauses, and the tension bleeds from his muscles until he whuffs dejectedly and flops to the ground.

“No rabbits, huh?” Sam laughs, shaking his head and the wolf glares at him over his shoulder. “Hey, I get it. I’ve done a lot of hunting in my life, but Bambi and Thumper? No way.”

The wolf’s stomach growls and he sits up, scanning the yards for something else.

“We could go into one of the houses, see if we can scavenge something,” Sam says, even though the idea makes sweat prick under his arms. The thought of going inside already making him uncomfortable. The wolf’s body tenses, too, and it looks from the houses to Sam and his ears slick back against his head. “You don’t like being inside either, do you?”

They share a look that is loaded with meaning, Sam so certain that both of them are thinking about the storm, about the change, and how strange it is to have such a fundamental reaction suddenly change. Sam feels understood in that moment, and he’s only ever felt that known with Dean.

Sam is overcome with the sudden need to see the wolf’s light again, looks until he can see its steady shine and then he looks harder, desperate to understand what it is in him that allows them to connect like this. He must look too hard because the dull burn in his eyes flares bright and the whole world is washed in yellow. Sam hisses and snatches the glasses from his face to rub at his eyes until the ache eases. He slips the glasses back on and when he looks back up, the hair along the wolf’s back is standing on end and his whole body is tense.

“Hey, are you ok?” Sam asks, taking a step closer. The wolf flinches back and Sam freezes. The camaraderie of a minute ago is completely gone and Sam doesn’t understand what happened to it. He steps back and sinks slowly to the ground. Fishing around in his pack, he pulls out a couple packs of jerky. “You might like this better,” he says, and lays a few pieces out on the ground and then sits back and waits.

After a few minutes the wolf comes close enough to sniff at the jerky. He makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat and snatches them up. They disappear in two bites. Sam lays out a few more and the wolf inches a little closer to get them.

“Want more of the BBQ or do you want to try the Jalapeño?” The wolf’s ears perk up and his tail thumps against the ground. Sam smiles a little and opens the pack, “Jalapeño is Dean’s favorite, too.” There’s something about the way the wolf looks at him, and the way Sam finds him so easy to read that makes Sam wonder. “You’re not him, are you? You’re not Dean?”

The wolf looks up at Sam, and it feels like he can see right through him, but his eyes dart away and he shakes his head.

“No,” Sam sighs, “Of course not. That would be too easy.” He hates to think of Dean alone out there, turned into something he doesn’t want to be. Maybe losing himself like all the other creatures Sam’s seen. Sam shakes his head, trying to clear it because he’s going to find Dean and he’s going to do it right. Find Dean, find Jack, fix it. Sam opens the new pack of jerky, and when he holds out a piece the wolf takes it straight from his hand.

It isn’t until they come across a stream five miles later that Sam knows he and the wolf are on solid ground again. The wolf crouches by the stream and drinks, and drinks, and drinks some more. “Too much jerky. You should really be careful with all that sodium,” Sam teases. The wolf lifts its dripping muzzle and wags its head making high-pitched breathy noises and it takes Sam a minute to realize that it’s mocking him like a fifth grader. Sam laughs and the wolf rolls his eyes and goes back to drinking.

  
  


…

The sun is past its zenith, sinking in slow descent into the lazy heat of afternoon when Sam stops for another water break. The water is warm but it eases the thirsty pinch at the back of his throat and he drinks long and deep. Water spills around the lip of the bottle’s wide mouth to run thin trails over Sam's chin and down the long stretch of his throat.

When he's finished, the wolf is watching him from where it paces a few yards ahead. Sam swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and holds the bottle out in offering, but the wolf shakes his head and shifts his weight from paw to paw. It’s been doing that for the last couple hours. The restlessness of restrained power combining with the wolf’s determination to stay close to Sam leaving the wolf caught in a cycle of darting ahead and then waiting for Sam to catch up.

"Here," Sam says, crouching beside the wolf and pointing along their bearing. "See the fourth telephone pole on that hill and the second tallest tree on the one behind it?" The wolf leans its head over Sam's arm, sighting along his outstretched arm. "Line them up, and that's our bearing. That's where you'll find me."

The wolf sits back on his haunches, cocking his head at Sam.

"You've been dying to run, haven't you?"

The wolf looks away from Sam, shakes its head sharply, then exaggeratedly scans the area around them.

“You’re worried about something attacking, like those wraiths? C’mon we haven’t seen anything for hours. If something happens, I’ll call for you.”

The wolf looks over the landscape then back at Sam, its feet dancing. Sam can’t help but smile.

“Well, go on. Show me what you’ve got. You know where to find me when you’re done.”

The wolf grins, tongue lolling out and makes a show of stretching out his hind legs, then his front, chest low to the ground, tail high in the air and wagging, back curved in a low bow. The wolf glances at Sam and Sam rolls his eyes. The wolf snorts and rolls to his feet, tossing his head primly, and shocking a warm laugh from Sam. He looks back once more, makes sure Sam's eyes are on him, and then he's off like a shot and Sam's laughter trails off into amazed silence.

The wolf passes like a sigh on the wind, huge paws silent against the ground as it weaves through the low scrub of the fallow pasture. Flashes of white among the brown and faded summer green. Body sleek and fast as an arrow.

Sam follows at a much less impressive pace, picking his way through thorny blackberry bushes, collecting ripe berries as he goes. Halfway through, an old barbed wire fence cuts across the pasture. Sam walks until he finds a place where the top wire has broken free from its post and sags low enough for Sam to step over. When he looks up, he spots the wolf at the top of a hill in the distance, looking back at him. Sam raises his hand and the wolf bounds off again.

Half an hour later, Sam hops the last fence to find the wolf sitting at the base of the telephone poll. Gone is his grin and the joyful exuberance of his run through the field. He’s gnawing at his left paw, a low and constant grumble coming from deep in his chest. It takes Sam a moment to understand what he’s seeing.

Little green balls cling to the wolf’s fur. Sam glances down and sure enough, there are a few clinging to his jeans. Burs. They’re burs. The wolf’s legs and chest covered in them. Sam stifles a laugh and the wolf’s head snaps up, brow drawn low and teeth bared. It’s not a particularly threatening look with a bur stuck to his upper lip.

Sam can’t keep it back this time, he laughs bright and open. The wolf’s rumbling intensifies, but the soft look in his eyes quiets Sam’s laughter.

“Come on,” Sam says, “quit grumbling and let me help.”

The wolf limps over and Sam grimaces, meeting him halfway and dropping to his knees. The bur on the wolf’s lip is barely clinging on, probably transferred when he was trying to pick them off his leg. Even still, its thin, curved spines are hooked like velcro and fine enough to cling to the whorls on Sam’s fingertips until he shakes it away.

“One down,” Sam says, leaning back to take in the damage. The thick coating that clings to the wolf’s forelegs and the along his sternum. A few on his back legs. “And a lot more to go.”

Sam lays his hand on the wolf’s side and catches his eyes, remembering the way he flinched away from him earlier. “This ok?”

The wolf searches Sam’s face and then bobs his head in a slow nod. Sam nods back and sets to work. He starts on the wolf’s left leg, easing out the one stuck between the pads of his toes. The size of his paws is even more striking up close. Sam holds out his hand, presses it against the wolf’s paw. His fingers barely extend beyond the wolf’s dark claws. He freezes when he realizes what he’s doing, wondering if he’s crossed a line, but the wolf cocks his head and flexes his toes against Sam’s hand, and Sam smiles. He works methodically from the paw up, then runs his hands in firm strokes down the leg to make sure it’s clear.

He moves to the next leg, then coaxes the wolf closer so he can run his hand down its flanks, fingers rasping through the thick fur. The wolf stands with one leg on either side of Sam’s knees and calmly submits to Sam’s hands, his breath going even and deep. When Sam’s done, he sits back on his heels and thumps the wolf on the side a few times, enjoying his solidity. The wolf moves back, not far, but enough to catch Sam’s eyes. He leans back in slowly, caution in his golden eyes, until his warm nose skates along Sam’s jaw, and further back until he can nuzzle his head against the side of Sam’s and then he steps back and casts a suspicious look to the pile of burdock by Sam’s side.

“You’re welcome,” Sam says, a little startled by the thank you and how it leaves him warmed-up inside.

The wolf looks back to the setting sun and then nods his head down their path, making an anxious sound in his throat. It’s getting late and they could be another two miles or more closer to finding Dean and Jack if they hadn’t had to stop. That fear, the soul-deep dread that he is going to fail Dean, rises up and Sam does his best to smother it.

"It's okay," Sam says, "I needed the break anyway." He leans back against the telephone pole and lets his eyes slip closed. He remembers the wolf running through the pasture, how fast he was, how free. "I bet you could have kept going. Just run forever."

When he opens his eyes the wolf is watching him again, ears turned back and brow drawn in worry.

“Hey it’s ok. I’m not giving up. I’m going to fix this, it’s just…”

Sam wants to bury his face in the wolf's neck and hide, like he would if the wolf were a dog, but he’s not - he’s a person and there is no hiding from this, and no running away. Sam closes his eyes instead and visions of the forest rise up. Wide paws against the ground, one set white one tawny. He can hear the dull concussion of their footfalls, feel the impact jar up his legs. Smell the sharp tang of cool air and fallen leaves.

“I’ve been having these dreams, visions maybe…” Sam trails off, confused why he mentioned it. The wolf’s eyes snap to Sam, gaze piercing but Sam shakes his head. “Nevermind, it’s not important. We should go.”

The wolf whines and tries to catch Sam’s eyes but Sam turns away and pulls out his compass to take another bearing. There is work to be done and whatever is happening to Sam can wait.

…

Sam drifts awake to see banked embers in the fire circle and feel them deep in his belly. Red heat a low buzz that thrums through his blood, keeps his mind hazy. His hips hitch, a quiet gasp shuddering from his lips. He’s hard, already leaking. Boxers clinging to the wet head of his dick where it’s trapped against his thigh.

His dream lingers, the rush of air across his face, sweet tang of loamy earth after rain. The muscles in his thighs twitch, tick like they’re cooling down after a hard run. His fingers and the tips of his ears tingle. Little flashes of sensation lighting up his nerves. Above him, the gibbous moon overflows with light, full near to bursiting.

Sam’s cock twitches, pleasure pulsing down his spine, back arching and heels digging into the ground. The machine of his body already primed, racing down an inevitable course, momentum unstoppable.

The sleeping bag constricts him, suffocating. He throws it off. Clambers to his feet, catches himself on an oak tree. Fingers of one hand digging into the trunk, his other hand sliding up and down over his thigh, palm growing warm from the friction of his jeans.

Something is happening. He can’t think, can hardly take in enough oxygen, the phantom scent of forest and rain making the air thick. Everything is warm and hazy. Desire pools heavy and liquid in his gut. His fingers curl, nails rasping over his jeans, pressure sharp as he draws his hand back up his thigh. His thumbnail catches against the head of his cock where its trapped against his thigh and he groans, flipping around to grind his shoulders into the rough bark.

His hands shake as he opens his jeans, shoves them down to mid thigh and grabs hold of his aching cock. He works it in one broad hand. Cool night air catches on the shining slit of his dick, the wet insides of his thighs. He’s soaked, steeped in heady animal need. He works his hand in rough strokes, thumbs under the head, balls drawing up. So close. Already so close.

He tightens his grip, speeds his strokes. Heat flushes through his system, makes him shiver and groan. But he can’t get there. He aches. He needs. He doesn’t know what. Sam sobs and bares his teeth.

A low growl breaks through Sam’s own panting, and he snaps his eyes open. Across the red embers of the fire, the wolf watches, body hunched low to the ground, ears pressed back in a sleek line. His eyes glow orange in the firelight, catch on Sam’s. The zing of connection sinks straight into Sam’s gut. His head thunks back against the tree. His hand spasms around his cock, thumb stuttering over the head. He comes, sharp and sudden, groaning as his hips thrust in the open air. Pulsing again and again until he’s breathless and his knuckles are dripping.

Sam stares at his hand, mind coming back into sharp focus, cheeks flushing in embarrassment. He’s never... it’s never been like that before. So overwhelming that he can’t think through it. His body still hums with warmth. A low grade need still smoldering under the surface. Something inside still unsatisfied. All he would have to do is stoke it, give it air to breathe and he’d be right back in that hazy place.

Sam scrubs his clean hand over his face and ducks his head. He tucks himself away and puts his clothes to rights. He can see the wolf from the corner of his eyes. He's still crouched low to the ground, his flanks heaving with rapid breaths, but its ears are pricked forward now. All of his attention on Sam. He can’t begin to explain what just happened, can’t fathom laying back down and going to sleep. He needs to move.

Sam makes his way as steadily as he can to his pack, pulls out a bandana and cleans his hand, sacrificing a little drinking water to wipe away the evidence. He balls up the bandana and shoves it in the bottom of his pack and rolls up the rest of his gear before dousing the fire.

He shoulders his pack, cinching the straps tight, and steps up to the edge of the field. A lone cricket sings sweet songs from the treeline, slower now that the night has cooled. A dry breeze bends the grass, sighs through the oak trees, cools the sweat on Sam’s neck. Through the distant trees, a lake glints in the moonlight.

The wolf slinks up beside Sam, head low, keeping a careful distance between them, unsure of its welcome.

“I think…” Sam’s voice shakes and he clears his throat. “I think we should cover some more ground while the moon is still up. It’s only a few miles to the lake.”

...

Sam smells the lake, sharp and cool, even before he sees it. Navigating across the open field, it was easy enough to keep their line, but once they crossed into the woods on the south western tip of the lake, it gets more difficult. They circle round a cedar and break through onto a public access road. The gravel crunches under Sam’s feet as he turns east toward the lake.

The wolf sees it first. He whuffs softly, and Sam looks down into his waiting eyes. He hitches his head toward the far edge of the shore and then turns to stare with intent.

A shadow moves at the edge of the water, blacker even than the lake. Gentle waves lap along the curve of its massive sides. Its head hangs low over the sandy shore, its limbs, long and flat slide from the water and dig into the sand. The beast grunts, hauls itself forward, something slick and black pumping behind it in the water. With slow precision it swings its limbs forward again, laboriously dragging itself onto the beach. Its dripping bulk picked out in silver lines of light until Sam can see the shape of it, the dome of its carapace angling back to the sea-like tail, the stringy hair that clings to the massive bell of its head. It swings its head side to side in a slow arc, scanning the beach. When it’s far enough up the shore, it begins to dig.

With a sick lurch, Sam remembers a documentary he saw as a kid on sea turtles, and how badly he wanted to see them come on shore and lay their eggs. This isn’t what he meant and he’s left wondering about who this person was, if she was pregnant before this all happened. If Jack can turn everyone back, what becomes of her baby? Sam looks until his eyes burn, but she’s all shadow, no flicker inside of her.

“There’s nothing left,” Sam says, and his stomach turns “nothing human. She’s just… empty.”

The wolf sits beside Sam, leans against his side, weight and warmth sinking in. Sam leans back, knuckles brushing the wolf’s shoulder. They watch the creature dig with single minded, trance-like focus, her labored breathing audible even over the shush of sand and gravel.

“We should go,” Sam whispers. The wolf rises to its feet and slinks back toward the road. When Sam doesn’t immediately follow, he comes back, nudges his wet nose against Sam’s elbow and gently herds him into the treeline.


	3. Chapter 3

__

_The day after Dad’s funeral, one of the owls landed right next to us on the fence post. It just looked at us with those bright yellow eyes and I swear there was something sad in them, like it knew. And I thought, maybe Mom was right all along. Maybe they were magic. I told her that, thought she’d like it, but she never came back again. Seems some things are bad enough that you got to stop believing in magic to survive them. Wasn’t long after that when she went and got remarried. She said finding him was the first piece of good luck this family had in two lousy years. I didn’t really like him, but he looked normal enough. Shook my hand like I was grown up. Told me he was gonna take care of us. Later, I remember thinking I should’ve known, the second he took my hand. Some people got evil inside of them and I should’ve seen. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you know? If you’re looking close enough, you ought to see the claws sticking out. I know it don’t work like that, but maybe it should._

…

Sam wakes to the sound of splashing water. He bolts upright, eyes flying open but it’s just the wolf. He’s knee-deep in the stream that flows into the lake, staring intently down into the water. The muscles in his shoulders tense, then he pounces, diving into the water. He surfaces with a huge, black catfish.

“Nice job,” Sam says and the wolf jumps and shoots Sam a look. He drops his prize next to another catfish that Sam hadn’t noticed before, and then shakes himself off, water droplets spraying everywhere, hitting Sam right in the face. “Watch it,” Sam says, and the wolf grins and settles in to eat. He works his way through his catch while Sam grimaces at his chalky protein bar and washes it down with stale water.

It isn't until they're finished that the wolf spots it. He whuffs at Sam and nods to the far side of the stream. Sitting in the shadows, the owl watches them, yellow eyes wide and bright. Before Sam can get a good look at it, see if it's carrying a light, it takes off, swooping between the trees and out of sight. Something tells Sam they haven't seen the last of it.

They push hard, walking all through the morning and into the afternoon. The hard pace and the bright sun, drives away Sam’s melancholy from the night before, and he finds himself enjoying the burn in his muscles. The wolf shows no signs of fatigue, seems incapable of it, and he runs ahead several times, but he always comes back. Sam crests a hill to find the wolf waiting there after his latest jaunt, tongue lolling out as he pants in the hot sun. He yips happily and nods his head down the hill to a nearby intersection that’s right on their bearing. On the near side is a little self-serve farm stand bursting with produce.

“Awesome,” Sam says and smiles down at the wolf who shakes his head, but keeps his wolfish grin.

The stand is packed with tomatoes, fresh corn, green and yellow acorn squash, and baskets of apples, all of it none the worse for wear after sitting out for two days. Sam grins and takes his time picking out a few yellow and pink apples that the sign says is are Golden Delicious. He slips some into his pack and grabs one for now, shining it up on his jeans.

He takes a jaw-straining bite, smiling down at the wolf as they cross the road. He looks back at the farm stand and its baskets of pink and green apples glowing in the sun, when something on the stop sign catches his eyes. Etched with careful precision on the bottom of the sign are the words “and smile.” Sam freezes in his tracks, the sweet taste of apple turning sour in his mouth. Some kids stopped at this middle-of-nowhere intersection - maybe for the stand, maybe just because - and this was their rebellion. With the dull tip of a pocket knife, they could have left anything behind. What they chose was “stop and smile.” Now who knows where they are. What they are. Do they even have hands to carve their messages, or a human mouths to smile with?

The heat and warmth of the sun that was pleasant moments ago is suddenly overbearing. Sam grits his teeth, unclips his pack at chest and hips and lets it fall to the ground. He grabs the back of his overshirt’s collar, doesn’t bother to unbutton it, too full of impotent anger, because how can someone like him fix something this big. Every person in more than 300 hundred miles transformed, maybe more. Maybe all. How can something this huge be put to rights. Sam yanks the shirt over his head and throws it to the ground.

_Ka-thump_

Sam’s heart stutter-beats in his chest, a concussion of power pulsing out from him. The skin across his back itches, his eyes burn.

_Ka-thump_

Every muscle in Sam’s back and neck seizes. The wolf whines pacing closer. Pain lances across Sam’s shoulder blades, stabbing, blanking his mind with the force of it. Sam falls to his knees, palms slamming into the macadam.

_Ka-thump_

He opens his burning eyes. The world is tinted gold and he can see it there. He can see it. An ocean of black and frothing smoke, churning in the guts of the earth. Not just down, but over. A step to the side, a touch out of line. It’s so clear, so close. He could reach it, that power that waits for him. That’s always been waiting for him. Hundreds of them, thousands. Maybe with all of that, he could do it.

_Ka-thump_

If Jack can’t set things right, who else could do it? Not God. He wouldn’t lift a finger. Only Sam. There is no other backup. But he isn’t strong enough. Sam’s mouth waters, remembered taste of iron on the back of his tongue. It’s the only way; he needs it.

_Ka-thump_

Sam reaches out a trembling hand, mind full of heaving black. His fingers brush something soft and he jumps. He blinks and the world comes back into focus, the road and the sunlight. His discarded shirt under his hand. Tangled in the collar, a black cord. The amulet.

Fear slams back into Sam. He’s changing. Sam scrambles for the amulet as pain punches through his back. The cord tangles in his fingers, catches on the edge of the sunglasses. He knocks the glasses away, pulls on the amulet and hunches over, clutching it in his hand.

The muscles in Sam’s back jump and roil. His shadow bulges, bubbles, two lumps growing over his shoulders. Shivering, unfurling. Pain lances in hot, oozing slashes down his back.

“No, no. Not this. I’m not…” Sam pants, voice cracking. He curls over until his forehead rests on his knees. “I’m not a monster.”

The wolf whines again, huge paws coming into Sam’s view, breath washing over his nape in warm steady waves. Sam stares at the fur on his paws, counts the wolf’s breaths until his own slow to match, all the while whispering under his breath. Prayer, plea, desperate belief.

“I’m not a monster. I’m not a monster.”

The pain recedes and his shadow settles and Sam falls into silence.  He stays there, bent on his knees in the crossroads until the wolf nudges him, bumps it’s side into Sam’s shoulder.

“It’s ok,” Sam says and sits back on his haunches. “It’s ok, it’s over. I’m fine.”

Sam uncurls his fingers from the amulet, finger nails popping free of the grooves dug deep into his skin. He rubs his thumb over the smooth skin of his palm, wondering why the amulet’s face isn’t imprinted there, wanting to be marked. He reaches back, runs his hands over his sweat soaked t-shirt, but there’s nothing. No blood, no rips. Like nothing happened.

Sam searches for his sunglasses, grabbing them from the ground. The lenses are dinged, but not badly. In his curve of reflection, Sam sees the glow fading from his yellow eyes and looks away. He slides the glasses back on, tips his head back and breathes. The sky is a flat, gray-washed blue with nothing behind it but empty space. He stares at it for long minutes and waits for the sick twist of his gut to unclench.

The wolf rises from where he has been hunched by Sam’s side. He turns, shoots Sam a pointed look over his shoulder, and thwacks his tail into Sam’s neck, shaking Sam from his stupor. The wolf walks to the otherside of the road, back on their line of travel, and stops at the edge of the field, waiting.

Sam gets the message. Get up, keep going. He pushes himself to his feet on watery muscles, snatches up his overshirt and shoulders his pack. He steps up beside the wolf, scanning the horizon, finding again the tree that marks their line. He lays his hand on the wolf’s neck.

“You’re not one either,” Sam says. “A monster. Neither of us are.”

The wolf goes still beneath Sam’s hand and he sinks his fingers further into the wolf’s ruff. When he steps through the knee-high prairie grass, the wolf is close by his side.

…

They’re crossing through fields of corn stubble when a small herd of creatures crests the hill. They move together, the largest in the lead, long spiraling horns rising up from the elegant head. They pause when they spot Sam and the wolf, long, slender necks curving in graceful arcs as they watch them, spindly legs paw impatiently at the ground. The bodies are covered in short, richly russet fur. They look as though they walked off a documentary on gazelle but for the appearance of being stretched to the point of fragility.

Sam crouches down, makes himself small and the wolf sits beside him. The leader watches for long minutes, until he decides they’re no threat. He leads the herd over the hill and Sam watches them go in wonder, their spun glass legs seeming too tall, too delicate to hold them. At the back of the heard, a lone creature follows, its head hanging between its shoulders, the small stub of horns visible. Something dejected in the slope of its shoulders.

Sam looks closer, really looks. Inside he sees a dull flicker of light. Sam’s chest constricts painfully. It’s so much like the little creature he saw on the road, the one whose light he watched go out. The one he did nothing to help. Not this time.

Sam rises slowly to his feet. “Hey,” he calls softly and the last gazelle pauses, turns toward him. “You can understand me, can’t you?”

The wolf growls and Sam waves him off eyes locked on the creature, the light inside as it flares brighter, new hope coming to life in Sam’s heart.

“I know you’re scared, that this all seems too crazy to be real, but I can help.” Sam holds out his hand and the gazelle takes a tentative step forward. “We’re trying to figure this out. Come with us.” The wolf growls again, louder, but Sam ignores him, stepping closer. “We’ll keep you safe.”

The wolf surges forward and horror races through Sam. He lunges, grabs the wolf by the scruff and hauls it back. The gazelle jumps back and that’s when Sam sees it. The ground is seething. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds scuttle through the corn stubble -chitinous and brown, insect-like legs cocked out at sharp angles as their low-slung, jointed bodies rock back and forth - until the whole hillside seems to roll forward.

The gazelle dances over the surge of bodies, but they’re fast and there are so many of them. They rear back, front legs swaying through the air like antennae until they blindly contact some part of the gazelle's body and latch on until it can no longer move. They swarm over it, and it screeches in terror, the sound nearly drowned out by the shuffle-click of the swarm as they crawl over each other.

Sam drops the wolf, scrambles to his feet, unsheathing the machete. He wades through the swarm, kicking through them as he goes, stamping down and grinding with his heel. The creature goes down under the weight of them and Sam fights to it, slashing through exoskeletons, blue blood spraying. The wolf is right beside him. Teeth crunching, tossing broken bodies away from the struggling gazelle.

Sam pulls one away from its neck, its sharp carapice slicing his palm, and he can see the soft fur of the creature’s muzzle, its panicked eyes rolling before it sinks beneath the surge again. Fear rockets through Sam and he abandons the machete, falling to his knees and roaring as he tears through them, but no matter how many Sam pulls away, he can’t get through.

A new frenzy buzzes through the swarm, red blood seeps into the ground. Even through the crush of their bodies, Sam sees the gazelle’s light blink out. Pain slices through his side and Sam grabs for the machete, swipes at the creatures climbing up his pack. He struggles to his feet but they’re already surging up his legs, he staggers, ankle twisting painfully as he goes down. But then the wolf is there snarling as it pulls the creatures from Sam, and the machete clears the rest from his legs.

Sam reaches for the wolf's shoulder, levers himself to his feet. They back away, Sam hobling and the wolf covering him, when they pass too far from the swarm, the others turn back, joining the chaos over the gazelle’s body, the sea of creatures parting as the new ones join in, a flash of white bone shining out before the body is covered again.

The wolf nudges Sam and he looks down. It nods its head back down their line of travel and they break into a jog, Sam limping awkwardly. They don’t stop until Sam’s breath hisses through his teeth in pain. They’ve covered a few miles and Sam sinks down to his knees, trying to catch his breath.

…

He can’t stop picturing it, the fear in the creature’s rolling eyes. If Sam hadn’t stopped it. If he hadn’t tried to talk to it. Now it’s dead. It was a person and now it’s dead.

There is blue blood smeared along the wolf's muzzle. The sight of it makes him flinch. His own hands are covered in it. He yanks a water bottle from his pack, unscrewing the cap and nearly dropping the bottle in his trembling haste. He douses his hands, scrubs them free of blood.

"Come here, come here," he tells the wolf, wetting down a corner of his shirt. The wolf submits to Sam's vigorous rub down in silence, eyes locked on Sam.

Sam leans over his bent knees, stomach twisting and cramping. He coughs against the lump in his throat until he tastes bile on the back of his tongue. The swarm. He didn't even think. They could have been human once and he didn't even think about it. Not for a second. How many of them did he kill. A dozen, easily. The wolf even more.

When he closes his eyes, he can still hear the skuttle of their feet and the dry rattle of the corn and it makes his skin crawl even now.

If Sam figures this out, if Jack fixes this, will their bodies turn back? Will there be a field full of human bodies because Sam was scared, because they made him uncomfortable, because he forgot they weren't monsters?

The wolf whines and Sam takes a deep, steadying breath. They could have been like that house plant or the car, something else that got changed. He didn't see any light in them, even when he was looking for it in the gazelle.

Fear strikes Sam like a lightning bolt. Dean is out there somewhere, where anything could happen. He can’t leave him alone, he has to find him before something else does. If Dean remembers himself, if Sam can recognize him if he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, he has to find him. He has to.

He tries to get up, but his ankle twinges and he hisses and falls back. He takes a breath and tries again, grits his teeth through the pain. The wolf barks at him, darts forward and nudges Sam's shoulder knocking him back onto his ass. He touches his nose against Sam's ankle and whines.

"Stop it. It's not that bad." Sam rolls onto his knees this time and plants his good foot against the ground. The wolf circles him, and grabs the straps hanging from the back of Sam's pack and yanks him back down, a low warning rumbling in his throat.

"Seriously?" Sam's breathing heavy now, a bubble of anger expanding in his chest, pressing outwards. He swallows it down. "Look, we can't stay out in the open and there are few hours of light left. I'll take it easy, but we can still cover more ground."

Sam starts to get up and the wolf's muscles tense for movement. Sam shoots him a warning look and he subsides, but when Sam gets both hands on the ground, the wolf swoops in, nipping at Sam’s fingers until he pulls his hands back and the bubble bursts.

"Stop!" Sam shouts, he shoves the wolf with all his weight and it staggers back. The wolf snarls and darts back in. "Fucking let me up!" Sam shoves him again, harder. The wolf's legs go out from under it and it sprawls in the grass. "What is wrong with you?"

The wolf freezes and looks up at him eyes wide.

“I have to go. I have to find my brother. Don't you have someone you're looking for?" Sam asks. The wolf shakes his head. "Then you wouldn't get it. My brother, he's all I've got. I can't leave him alone out there. I won't let him down again."

The wolf whines and plants itself in front of Sam, ears back and body low to the ground. It's submissive and sad and it makes Sam feel like a complete asshole.

“Alright, you win.” Sam says and falls back on his ass, stretching his twisted ankle out in front of him. The wolf steps right in front of Sam again, catches Sam’s eyes and barks, ears up and tail out straight, something bright in its eyes. It bounces on its front legs, as if to say, “I'm here.” Which Sam knows, ok. He is very aware of the annoyingly persistent wolf forcing him to take a break. It pisses Sam off. He’s already conceded, he’s waiting. The wolf doesn’t need to rub it in.

“I said you win,” Sam snaps, “back off.”

The wolf flinches, stares at Sam for a long moment. He shakes his head and turns his back to Sam, sitting heavily on his haunches. Sam breathes through his anger and fear enough to read the frustrated lines of the wolf’s body. He pushes his hair back from his face, guilt creeping in. He doesn’t know why the wolf gets under his skin like this.

“That isn’t what you were trying to say that last time, was it?” The wolf looks at Sam from the corner of his eye and grunts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.”

Sam’s throat tightens up, and if the miscommunication makes Sam feel this bad, it must be awful for the wolf. Sam holds out a shaky hand. The wolf huffs and shoots Sam a look from the corner of its eye that is so clearly exasperated that Sam can’t hold back an anemic laugh. The wolf rolls his eyes and knocks his muzzle into Sam’s hand.

“Do you want to try telling me again? I’m listening this time.” Sam offers a weak smile and the wolf hesitates, its ears half-slicked back.

He steps forward, cautious as he moves into Sam’s space. He bumps his nose, once, twice, over Sam’s heart then sits back and bends his head over his own chest. Whatever this is, it’s important, Sam can tell that much, but without context he’s lost. He shakes his head, the smile slipping from his face.

“I don’t…”

The wolf sighs and swipes a paw over his muzzle, before he nudges Sam’s pack hard enough to jolt him forward and then nods his head to the nearby trees. And that message Sam does get.

“Yeah, ok, ok. I’m going.” Sam says uses the wolf’s shoulder to get to his feet.

They stumble to into the trees and find a place to make camp and Sam immediately kindles a fire while the wolf paces the perimeter of the small clearing restlessly. Sam builds the fire up, bigger than he has before. He can’t stop thinking about the swarm. The shape of their bodies, the color of their shells makes Sam think the cornfields were their homes, and though he’s certain they wouldn’t follow them this far out with the herd still in their territory, Sam still piles a stack of wood close at hand. The next time the wolf paces by, Sam catches the hungry grumble of his stomach and something eases up inside of him.

"I think we're ok," Sam says. "We're far enough away and I don't think they will leave those corn fields. Why don't you go find something to eat. I'm almost out of jerky and I bet you could use something more substantial."

The wolf huffs and goes back to pacing.

"Don't be stubborn," Sam says. "I need to refill my water and finish setting up camp. And you need to eat."

The wolf grumbles but he heads off into the woods and Sam sets about making camp. He’s got a fire burning and is mechanically chewing a protein bar when the wolf returns. Sam smiles when he sees him, he must have caught a bird because there’s a feather clinging to his nose.

“You’ve got,” Sam says, motioning to his own nose and the wolf cocks his head curiously. “Oh, just come here.”

The wolf rolls his eyes and trots over until his forelegs press against Sam’s knees. The feather is stuck perfectly to the center of his nose, right in his line of site. There is no way the wolf didn't know it was there, which means he left it there on purpose, so Sam would have something to laugh about. Sam's heart squeezes in his chest. He plucks the feather from the wolf's nose and ruffles his ears.

The wolf springs away and stalks haughtily to the other side of the fire where he flops down and lays his head on his paws, grumbling the whole way. Sam laughs and pretends he doesn't see the wolf's tail thump happily against the ground at the sound.

…

Laying in his bedroll, Sam watches the moon through the trees as it rises into the night sky. The throbbing in his ankle fades away, a buzzing warmth seeping in in its place. He rolls it back and forth and there's no pain. Sam throws open his sleeping bag and clambers to his feet.

He paces around the fire, testing his ankle, but the pain is gone and the warmth is spreading. He feels good, strong, all the aches and pains of two days of physical strain draining away. A restlessness builds in his legs, the muscles along his spine twitch, sweat beading on the nape of his neck, pricking under his arms.

He sheds his overshirt, tosses it onto his sleeping bag. He kicks off his shoes next, pauses as he toes out of his socks because this isn't rational he doesn't know what he's doing, but the thought can't hold against the wave of heat suffusing his body.

Sam tips his head back, rolls his neck on his shoulders, tries to settle his skin back onto his bones, but it doesn't fit right. It's too tight, strained at the seams, waiting to burst. Through the canopy of trees, a cloudbank limned in silver skates by, revealing the face of the moon - not full, not yet, but soon - and Sam's heart races with the promise of it.

His skin is electrified and the wolf's attention is as palpable as a hand skimming over his shoulders, to his waist and down. When he turns, the wolf's eyes are locked on him as he crouches low by the fire, ears slicked back like the night before, mouth open and panting. A rumble builds in Sam's chest, as near to a growl as he can get. The wolf rolls to his feet, head slung low as he circles the fire.

Instinct drives Sam in the other direction around and they circle each other, the wolf's body a sleekly muscled machine that Sam can't look away from. That restlessness builds in Sam, coalesces in his gut. Something like a challenge rising up in him, and his lip pulls back in a snarl. The wolf’s eyes flash in the firelight and it growls low, pursuing Sam further through the clearing. Sam crosses into a beam of moonlight, and it’s like he walked into a glass door, whole body rocking as he stops in place. His eyes slip closed and his skin tingles.

When he opens his eyes, the wolf stands before him. He growls again, sound reverberating through his ribs, every inch of power and focus turned on Sam, and Sam's knees turn to water and he sinks to the ground.

"Oh," Sam gasps, dazed, stunned to find himself on his knees, jeans pulling tight across his lap and - oh god, he's hard. All that heat and buzzing need flowing through him and he didn't understand it until now.

"What's-" the wolf moves in closer, nose trailing over the curve of Sam's shoulder, hot breath washing across his neck as he tucks his muzzle in close.

Sam's heart races, even as something warm and pleased slips down his spine to pool in his gut. His head tips back, baring his throat. The wolf huffs, satisfied, and sets its teeth against Sam's skin. Sam goes boneless, falling back as the wolf guides him down.

The wolf pulls back, and Sam tries to clear his head but he's steeped in moonlight, the rich scent of the forest and fresh rain making him dizzy and slow. The wolf blinks, eyes clearing and he shakes his head as if shaking off water. Sam looks close, inside, sluggish worry penetrating the haze, afraid that his friend is losing himself, that they both are, but the wolf's light is brighter than he's ever seen it, flaring in sunspot bursts.

The heat in his own gut flares up in time with it, something deep and secret waking up. When he blinks away that internal sight, the wolf is looming over him again, chest heaving with breath. And further down, the dangerous red of his dick unsheathing. It’s huge and thick and already dripping. Looking at it makes Sam’s insides ache and his gut clench.

Sam whimpers and the wolf groans and lowers himself inch by inch over Sam, heavy weight of his body pressing into Sam. Their hips meet last, the wolf’s dick searing hot against his even through the stretch of his jeans.

Sam’s eyelids flutter and the wolf ruts against him, thrusting slow and hard, Sam’s whole body rocking with the force, his cock twitching and leaking, body aching with the need to pull him closer. Fuck and grind until he comes, lets it all go.

But Sam doesn’t do that anymore, he doesn’t let go, he can’t. He’s dangerous when he lets go, but he doesn’t want to fight it this time. It’s too good, making his toes curl as the wolf thrusts, rubbing his dick against Sam’s, making Sam sob and gasp, and ache for more. Sam’s shirt rides up and the soft fur of the wolf’s belly clings to his sweaty skin. His hands fist in the wolf’s fur, his neck falls back and the wolf’s panting breaths fan across his throat.

The wolf’s hips stutter as something huge and hot presses against the base of Sam’s dick, grinding and making him shiver. Sam pushes the wolf back enough to look between them and see the huge red knot forming at the base of the wolf’s cock, veins throbbing and dick twitching the wolf growls and thrusts, slamming them back together and Sam’s hips hitch helplessly up, grinding his dick into the heavy pressure of the wolf’s knot. His legs hike up of their own accord, clamping around the wolf’s hips, but its still not enough to satisfy the ache in Sam’s gut.

“What are you…” Sam gasps, his back arches, pleasure slamming through him, “What are you doing to me.”

The wolf groans low in his throat and he drops his whole weight into Sam grinding into him as his cock flexes and spills across Sam’s lap in heavy, gushing pulses, the filthy surge of it soaking into Sam, rubbing into his skin, but all Sam can think is _that’s supposed to be inside of me._ Sam’s head slams back and he comes, crying out as all the heat in his gut explodes, fizzing along his nerves and leaving him shaking.

Sam’s body goes limp and he lays there under the wolf, body twitching and overstimulated, mind slowly coming back online. When the wolf finally pulls away, the haze lifts from his eyes and he looks at Sam with his head held low and ears bent back.

“I just- I…” Sam struggles to stand, legs watery, jeans soaked through, and turns away into the woods.

He stumbles down to the nearby stream, body still buzzing and brain deliberately offline. He strips out of his ruined jeans tossing them into the bushes, giving them up for a lost cause. His boxers are wet across the front, and at the seat too and that gives Sam pause, makes the edge of that unsatisfied ache flare brighter. He slides a tentative hand up the back of his thigh and in, finds himself slippery and slick. His heart thumps hard in his chest when his fingers slides over his hole and he finds it wet and sensitive. He snatches his hand back and looks blankly at the wet glisten.

He swallows and shakes his head, stepping into the stream and sinking into the cold water. Washing out his boxers and cleaning his skin, he finally lets himself think. What happened was out of control and wild and maybe he should have fought it harder but he knows why he didn’t. It touched something long buried and familiar in him. He can’t quite articulate why yet, but even with all of that external stimuli ramping up his bodie’s reactions, the core of it still felt like it came from within him.

The one thing he knows for sure is that despite what happened, he’s grateful to have the wolf here. Sam has a history of falling apart, of making wrong choices when Dean is gone. He’s desperate not to repeat those mistakes again, and the wolf keeps him grounded. He’s funny and protective, he makes Sam laugh in a world that alternately amazes and horrifies him, and it’s all so shockingly easy. And it scares Sam, way down deep, because he lives a claustrophobic life and there is only room for one person like that in it, and that’s his brother. But here Sam is, stomach clenching with the realization that he’s going to miss the wolf. When this is over, when it’s fixed and the wolf is human again and he goes back to his normal life, Sam is going to miss him. And that is more unsettling than anything that happened in that clearing.

Sam takes his time down at the creek, bracing himself for seeing the wolf again, but when he goes back, the fire has burned low, and the wolf is long gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry everyone, looks like I messed up publishing this chapter. My beta, bless her soul, and several super nice comments, clued me in. These are the perils of waiting til the last minute to post.

_It went wrong like most things do, slow and then too fast to stop. He took to yelling at me for everything. Couldn’t do one thing right in his eyes. But I was ok, I could’ve lived with that, but then he started… he just kept getting angrier and he started– he hurt me. He hurt me so bad, I couldn’t… Thought it was my fault, too, ain’t that dumb? When I finally told my mom, she didn’t believe me. My own mother. That’s when I knew that no one would ever see him for what he was, a monster, real and true. I still think about those owls all the time, did you know that? Out there flying where no one can touch them. I know magic ain’t real. But if it was, and if it was mine, I know exactly what I’d do. I’d find every person in the world that’s got something evil inside of them, or something they want to hide, and I’d drag it out into the light. Make it so they couldn’t ever keep it secret again. Then I’d turn myself into one of those owls and I’d fly away and I wouldn’t ever look back._

...

Sam pushes hard, trying to make up for the early stop last night, trying to keep his mind quiet. He tries not to think of the wolf, but when he does, his own words ring in his head. _What are you doing to me?_  and the horrible implications of that. What the wolf must be thinking. But Sam can’t afford these distractions; he has a mission. Find Dean, find Jack, fix it. It’s better that the wolf is gone. No confusion. No indefinable pull. Sam sheds his overshirt, tucks it into the straps of his pack. Sweat drips down his back, clings to his throat. His feet ache with his pace.

A bank of clouds rolls in midday and and the breeze pebbles Sam’s skin, carries with it the faint smell of smoke. He keeps his head down, keeps going. Looks up only to take a bearing and make sure he’s still on course. The ground beneath his feet blurs in indistinct browns. He gave up looking for flashes of the wolf hours ago. It’s better, he reminds himself.

He’s trudging through tall, golden reeds when a susurration of sound drags him from his travel stupor, makes the hairs on his arms stand up. Sam comes to an abrupt halt and looks up to find himself a few dozen yards into a marshy field. The breeze rustles the grass, a dry rattle.

He takes a breath. It’s the wind in the reeds, nothing more, but his heartbeat won’t calm down, cued into some primitive, instinctual awareness that Sam has learned to trust over a lifetime of hunting predators.

The breeze dies and the sun breaks through a gap in the clouds. The sound comes again. Sam unsheathes the machete but he can’t see anything. He spins in a slow circle and a glint of light catches his eye. He steps closer, squinting through the reeds. Scales. Scales as long as Sam’s thumb on a body as thick as his waist. The vermiculated pattern of brown and black blending in with the soft marsh soil, but now that he’s seen it, it’s everywhere. Everywhere. Every direction he looks, coils and coils of the snake’s body weaving in and out of the reeds, stretching out into the distance. Glinting in the weak sunlight as far as he can see. Impossibly, terrifyingly enormous.

A _shush_ of sound from behind him, and he spins to see the smooth slide of muscle as part of the snake moves in, loops of its body blocking his path back to the trees. For a moment he’s frozen. If the wolf was here, he would have sensed it, this never would have happened. If Sam weren’t alone… but he is. The treeline to his right is closest, so Sam picks his way slowly, as quietly as he can, stealing glances at the marsh, trying to make sense of the shape of the snake, figure out where the head is.

His foot catches in a mat of reeds and Sam stumbles, shin knocking into the smooth, cool scales. He jumps back and freezes, heart in his throat. For a moment nothing happens, silence hangs in the air. All at once, sound explodes through marsh, like a hurricane through the reeds, as every part of the snake’s body slides across the ground, rhythmic contractions of muscle as the scales push through the soft earth.

Sam runs, leaping over its thrashing body, crashing into the brush and ducking behind a tree. He looks back over the marsh and a huge head, longer than Sam is tall comes into view. The movement through the field comes to a slow stop. Sam lets out a relieved breath, until a second head rises up. Together they stand above the reeds, their tongues flickering in and out. Sam’s stomach twists when he sees where the two necks join into one, the body thick as a tree trunk. A tight coil of its body rises above the reeds as the heads stand taller. Inside the coil, the white tail of a deer and its weakly kicking back legs. Sam ducks back behind the tree.

A constrictor. They hunt by sensing heat? By smell? Vibrations? He can’t remember, doesn’t even know if the normal rules apply. He glances around the trunk of the tree, the snake’s massive heads stand above the reeds, tongues tasting the air. The deer has stopped twitching.

Sam crouches down and pulls out the map. He has to go around. Stay in the treeline, stay downwind. It’s miles out of his way. He’ll lose an hour maybe two.

“Dammit,” Sam whispers, smacks his open palm against the soft ground. “Goddammit.”

...

Sam stops on a hilltop with a gravel parking lot and sits for the first time in hours on one of the large boulders framing it. He stretches his sore legs out in front of him and works his way through two protein bars and a whole liter of water. Dusk settles into the countryside around him, shadows gathering in the low places, stretching out from under trees. The smell of smoke is stronger. Has been growing steadily for miles, but now a pillar of black smoke stands visible against the blush of pink along the western horizon. Its underside strobing orange and yellow. Sam can't see the flames directly, sheltered as they are in a valley, but he knows they're there.

He's half surprised he didn't run into a fire sooner. The storm stopped everything in its tracks, cut off power everywhere it touched. But a gas stove doesn't need electricity. It was only a matter of time before something burned. Sam grabs a handful of grass and throws it up in the air. It falls until the gentle breeze catches it, carries it north.

If the wind is the same where the fire burns, then Sam's path will bring him close as it moves north, but they shouldn't cross. He looks again to the plume of smoke. It hangs in the air, tipped slightly north. It's a good sign that the winds are quiet there, too. The valley worries Sam some. Fire is slow to move downhill, but races uphill. It could burn up that hillside in minutes, then it has wide, flat plane of prairie and pasture to eat through. As the prairie transitions into pasture, though, there is a thin line of forest that will slow the fire some and beyond that a road in the distance. If Sam can get there, even if the wind shifts and brings the fire into his path, it will have a hard time crossing it without a strong wind to carry it over.

Sam checks the wind again, and it hasn't changed, and it’s been steady for most of the day. Without seeing the fire, Sam's as sure as he can be that his path is safe enough to travel. It would be better if he could check the forecast, see if the wind is going to pick-up, check the humidity. But he can't and if he waits until morning, the situation could be worse. Besides, he can't stop, not yet. He's lost too much time already. Dean is somewhere out there, waiting.

Sam thinks of the wolf again, looks behind him where the eastern sky is heavy with night. For a moment, the phantom feeling of being watched has Sam sitting up taller, looking closer, but its nothing. If the wolf is out there somewhere, if he decides to look for Sam tomorrow, will there be a trail left to follow, or will the fire erase all memory of Sam's passing?

The trek down from the scenic overlook goes quickly, and by the time Sam reaches the prairie he can see the tops of the flames in the distance, dancing above the prairie flowers. It's travelling faster than he thought, the flames higher and hotter than he hoped.

He picks up speed, head down and focused on keeping his footing as he jogs toward the treeline. It isn't until a gust of smoke-laden air has Sam coughing that he realizes that the wind has shifted. It's coming out of the west now, bringing the fire right to Sam with alarming speed. It's already burning through the understory of the treeline and here Sam is, hip deep in little bluestem and aster. He's got to get ahead of it, beat it to the pasture.

He hooks his thumbs into the straps of his pack and runs. He crashes headlong through the treeline and out into the short grass of the overgrown pasture. He's ahead of the fire now and he stops to take a moment to catch his breath. The fire burns its way through the undergrowth, moving quickly enough that the living trees are unharmed, but for some heat wilted leaves on their lowest branches.

The fire has spread along the west side of the pasture all the way to the road, but the wind has shifted north again and its progress toward Sam is slow. On his otherside is an old wooden fence that hasn't been tended in a long time, dry grass as tall as Sam weaving up through its cracked rails. Once the fire hits the grass it will race along the fence line, burning long and hot.

An ominous creak behind him has Sam whipping around to see a dead tree glowing from the fire in its center, sparks shooting from the its hollow top. Deadwood, he thinks inanely, he forgot to check for deadwood. Heat flares against his face, and the base splits, fire spitting from the roots and it falls towards him. A blur of white and something barrels Sam over, tumbling him through the grass.

The tree crashes into the ground where he stood, an explosion of sparks and flaming bark raining down around him. Sam scrambles to his knees and finds himself face to face with the wolf.

"You came back.” Relief floods through Sam and he reaches out a tentative hand, stopping short of the wolf’s fur.

A gust of hot air and falling cinders snaps Sam out of it and he looks up to see fire racing along the dry grass. The fence line already burning halfway to the road, flames so hot they’re almost white as the wind pushes it on. The fire from the otherside has already reached the road, burning along it, and it will only be minutes before the last gap closes. There’s no way that Sam can make.

“Go,” Sam says, shoving the wolf toward the gap, “You’re fast enough, you can make it.” The wolf growls, snapping at Sam’s fingers and refuses to budge. “You have to go, please.”

But even as he begs, he knows the look in the wolf’s eyes and what it means. He won’t leave. He’ll stay right here and burn with Sam if that’s what it takes. There has to be another way. He needs shelter, he needs water. Sam scrambles to his feet, scanning frantically across the pasture. Something moves through the smoke, soaring in the sky and Sam’s heart leaps as he recognizes the huge, pale span of the owl's wings. It circles over and over around a dark spot in the field, something tall bending in the hot wind. Sam squints, shades his eyes from the dazzling firelight. Cattails. A pond.

"There," Sam shouts, pointing through the smoke. This is an old pasture, probably hasn't been used for years judging by the scrub oak and brambles. It might not be big enough, it might be half dry, and it means running towards the fire. Still, it's the best shot he's got.

He breaks into a run, pack jostling against his back. The wolf springs into movement, stays close by his side, but Sam urges it forward.

"Go," Sam calls, and the wolf shoots him a startled look, “Check it out. Make sure it’s deep enough.”

The wolf barks its ascent and takes off, strides lengthening out, body flexing as it eats up the distance. The wolf disappears in a plume of smoke and Sam puts his head down and runs. The fire advances in an uneven front, devouring the dry grass and lingering over the bushes and saplings, and burning hot enough to make the air burn Sam’s lungs. He leaps over a low wall of fire and then the wolf is there, bouncing on its feet, spinning to lead Sam to the pond. Its coat is smeared in mud up to its shoulders and Sam takes that as a sign that the pond is deep enough.

The cattails on one end of the pond are already burning, their seedheads holding flame like a torch. Sam slides down the steep bank and lands flat on his ass in the thick, stagnant mud. The fire is closing in from all sides, drawn into itself by the rising air currents. Still, Sam has a moment to breathe, a moment to plan.

Sam strips off his pack, and drains his water bottle. The heat is intense, the synthetic fiber of his pack already gummy, a few spots melted through by falling embers as he ran. He takes off his boots and overshirt, and digs out the tarp. He folds it around his pack and piles armfuls of mud on top to insulate it from the heat.

The wolf barks urgently and Sam turns to see the tree on the far side of the pond catch fire. He hesitates for a moment before taking off the sunglasses and slipping them under the tarp.

They wade out to the center of the pond where the scummy water comes up to Sam’s waist and the wolf’s neck. Sam sinks to his knees so the water comes up to his chin. It reeks of decay, but Sam can barely smell it through the smoke.

“You should have gone when you had the chance. The next few hours are going to suck.”

The wolf huffs and bumps its shoulder into Sam’s. They watch the fire jump from cattail to cattail until the pond is surrounded by a wall of flames. When the air gets too hot Sam sinks beneath the surface, holding his breath for as long as he can. Beside him, the wolf falls into the same pattern of deep and controlled breathing.

Over the burning cattails, a tornado of fire dances in the wind, flames, and smoke, and debris rising in a swirling vortex. Sam has seen it before as a ring fire closes in, where two lines of fire meet, the competing currents of hot air colliding.

Beside him, the wolf growls low in his throat and heat flares against the left side of Sam’s face. He flinches back from it and then he sees something through the flames, walking behind the vortex, thirty, maybe forty feet tall, made all of flames, long arms swinging, each stride sending up sparks as its feet hit the ground. As if it can feel Sam looking, its neck bends in his direction, head cocking as it spots him and the wolf, it’s eyes like empty black holes in the fiery brilliance of its face.

Sam gut clenches and he sinks down below the surface, hand clutching the wolf’s ruff, and stays there until his lungs burn. When they resurface, the firewalker is gone and the fire rages on. The cattails burn for a long time, green bases slowly drying out until they catch, burn, and then smoulder. The fire slowly dies out and Sam waits until he can no longer hear the hiss and crackle of the flames, until the pall of smoke thins, and longer still before he ventures out of the water.

...

Sam sinks down into the mud at the foot of the bank, the wolf by his side. Both of them are covered in stinking mud and algae. Sam wants to rub his aching eyes but his hands are too filthy. He's exhausted and cold and even the wolf looks bedraggled and miserable.

The mud on top of the tarp is now a cake of cracked dirt, dried by the heat of the fire. Underneath, his pack and shoes, machete and sunglasses are all unscathed. Sam debates stepping up on dry land to clean his feet and put on his boots, but the ground above the bank charred black with ash and still smoking.

“Your paws,” Sam says.

The wolf huffs and rolls his eyes. He stands up against the bank, taller than Sam like this, and presses one paw into the ground. He drops back down and nods at Sam.

"We'll move quick," Sam says and heaves his pack up onto the bank, setting the rest of his gear beside it. He uses his overshirt to wipe off his feet and put on his boots. He's reaching for the sunglasses, a little twist in his stomach when he thinks about how long he's been without them, when the wolf jumps up onto the bank. His back paw lands with a crunch on Sam's glasses.

"Hey!" Sam says, and tries to ease the wolf off, but he shoots Sam an innocent look over his shoulder and grinds the glasses further into the ash before Sam can push him off. One lens is shattered and the frame hopelessly twisted. Sam stares at them for a long moment, barely resisting the urge to touch his eyes, like that would tell him if they're still that awful yellow.

It was stupid and maybe a little vain, Sam gets that, but he fought for so long and so hard not to be this after coming so close. The wolf doesn't know any better, couldn't possibly comprehend why Sam needed them, but it still hurts. He thought he got over asking “why me?” years and a trip to hell ago but here he is feeling like a child with a smashed toy. Sam sighs, tries to shake himself out of it because he knows you can get dealt a shitty hand, but you still get to choose how to play it. The problem is he’s made a lot of bad choices and these eyes remind him of that in the worst way.

A gust of warm breath washes across Sam’s face and he looks up to find the wolf crouched low over the lip of the bank so that they're eye to eye. His golden eyes to Sam’s yellow. Sam’s stomach squirms, he knows the wolf has seen them before, but always at night and through the haze of that other thing, but the idea of someone - someone he cares about - seeing them so plainly in the light of day, leaves him exposed in ways he can’t articulate. The wolf leans in closer as if to rest his head against Sam’s but he lunges the last few inches knocking their heads together hard enough to hear the crack.

“Ow, what the hell?” Sam drops the glasses, hand flying to his forehead. The wolf dances back, breath rushing out in quiet little huffs. He’s laughing at Sam. “You’re such a jerk,” Sam says and swallows against the sudden stab of guilt, but the wolf the yips a cheery response, and Sam lets it go. When he hauls himself up the bank, he leaves the glasses in the mud with the ruined tarp.

The prairie all around the pond is a smoking plane of black. Here and there trees and bushes still smolder, but there is no sign of the firewalker. An old barn stands on the top of a nearby hill, red paint peeling, but the ground around it unscorched. Sam is off course from the fire and he needs to get back in gear, he has to be close to where Dean blipped off the radar. But he can see an old pump well at the front of the barn and he needs to get cleaned off, refill his water, and get his bearings.

He starts heading in that direction, but the wolf rounds on him, bumps his leg and points them back toward the road.

"I know it's a little out of the way, but we’ll regroup at the barn." The wolf's ears tick back but he doesn't protest again.

Sam picks up the pace, keeps them moving fast across the burnt ground until they cross a gravel road and jump an irrigation ditch that together served as a break for the fire. On the otherside, golden grass and tangles of white indigo and beyond that, fallow fields leading up to the barn. The closer they get, the more tense the wolf gets. The thought of going inside still makes Sam claustrophobic, so he understands.

"We don't have to go inside," Sam says. The wolf grunts, but it doesn't look up at Sam.

Sam drops his pack on the uphill side of the well and pumps the handle. It takes a while until the water gurgles up the shaft. When it comes out, it's clear and cool.

"Go on," Sam says and nods at the flow of water.

The wolf steps into the stream, lets the water wash off the mud. Sam gets enough pressure built up that the water will run for a little and bends down, helping to scrub the dirt from the wolf's fur. He's tense under Sam's hands like he hasn't been before so Sam keeps it quick, only checking one paw for damage, but there is none and he knows the wolf heals fast.

Sam washes next, stripping out of his ruined clothes and changing into a fresh set. He washes his dirty clothes as best he can and lays them out on the south side of the barn in the bare dirt, hoping the late summer sun will dry them.

The barn has a roll away door for farm equipment and next to it a regular door that's knocked half off its hinges. The chain lock on the roll door is busted, hanging loose against the clapboard walls. Inside, the glint of black metal, light catching on a smooth, familiar line of chrome.

Sam springs to his feet and pushes the door back and rushes inside. It's the Impala. She's facing Sam, probably brought in through the roll door on the other side. He circles the car and pushes that door open, too, his sense of claustrophobia easing as he does so. On this side, there’s a short, flat gravel drive to the road, but there's no Dean. He must have felt the transformation coming and tried to find somewhere safe to shelter.

“Dean!” Sam shouts and ducks back into the barn.

On the other side of the car, Sam finds a pile of Dean's clothes, abandoned on the ground. The boots kicked off and the clothes shed in a trailing pile. Sam runs over to them, grabs up Dean's black t-shirt. He doesn’t notice it at first, but when he does, his heart stutters in his chest. The shirt is covered in thick, white fur. The wolf’s fur. In the doorway, the wolf crouches, tail between its legs and ears flat against its head, and that's all the confirmation Sam needs.

"It was you, this whole time. I asked, and you said no. Remember that?" Sam says advancing on the wolf. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought- You let me think that my brother was gone. When you know..." Sam stops, takes in the defensive crouch of the wolf - of Dean - and shakes head.

Dean takes a tentative step forward and Sam holds up a hand, stopping him in his tracks. "Just give me some space, would you?" Sam says, voice carefully controlled. The wolf slinks out of the barn and Sam sinks to the ground, leaning back against the Impala with Dean's shirt still crumpled in his hand.

It’s hard to sort through what he’s feeling. So many emotions running wild through his head, but chief among them is relief so strong he can barely breathe through it. Dean is ok, or as ok as he can be, he held onto his humanity and he found Sam, and they’ve been in this together the whole time. That part he understands. It’s the weight that lifts from his shoulders when he realizes that the connection that drew him to the wolf isn’t some twisted betrayal of Dean, it is Dean, that leaves him shaken. He shies away from thinking about what happened two nights ago, and the way it felt like it tapped into something that was already inside of him, waiting to be woken up. But he can’t avoid it altogether, not with tonight being the full moon, not if he wants to keep things from getting worse between them.

Sam spends a few hours in the barn nursing his hurt and figuring out what to do next. Dean paces back and forth outside the barn, or sits in the shade by the open doorway, but he doesn’t come in, and he doesn’t push Sam for anything.

In the early afternoon, Sam comes out to the water pump and filters some water for drinking, Dean’s eyes are a weight against his back and his coiled tension makes Sam edgy.

“Full moon is tonight. Unless you want a repeat of two nights ago, we need to prepare.” Sam says, finally turning to meet Dean’s eyes, waiting for Dean’s nod before he outlines his plan.

…

By nightfall, Sam has the roll doors chained closed as best he can without working locks, and the side door wedged into place. He keeps hayloft doors open. It’ll let the moonlight in, but without it Sam’s skin crawls and his breath goes thready.

Dean paces outside, his shadow visible through the gap in the side door where the hinges are broken. Sam sits on the back seat of the Impala, legs hanging out the open door, only slipping inside when the first rays of moonlight hit the barn floor. As soon as the door closes, his chest goes tight and he breaks out in a sweat, but he doesn’t dare get out because his blood is already pumping hot through his body.

Over the next hour the moonlight sweeps over the barn floor and up into the car, and Sam breaks out in a feverish sweat. He sheds his overshirt, kicks off boots and socks, and skins out of his jeans, trying to cool down. His skin is hypersensitive, every nerve crying out for contact and that ache from before is back, sinking into him even as his cock fattens up. He rolls his body against the seat and his boxers slide slick against his ass. He’s wet and he needs… no, he has to fight it. Sam closes his eyes and reaches out for something else.

The world slams to a standstill and that roiling black, all the demons in hell, pushes up toward him. All he would have to do is reach out and take. But he doesn’t want it, would rather be this needy, writhing mess than have anything to do with it. He pushes it away and fumbles for the door handle, spilling out onto the barn floor and jaring back into his body.

He takes a deep breath and it’s a mistake, his senses are overwhelmed with Dean’s scent. His dick throbs and he gasps at the cool air on his slick thighs. Dean howls long and loud and slams his body into the side door until the wood cracks. He’s going to get in and Sam wants him to, wants to be held down again and his body made to feel electric. Sam stays there on his knees and waits.

The door gives way and Dean stalks into the barn, body low and sleek, a growl rumbling deep in his chest, red head of his dick unsheathing. He stalks over to Sam, circles behind him, hot breath gusting against Sam’s neck as he scents him. Dean nudges Sam’s back, the gentle push meant to push him onto his hands and knees, and Sam’s cock leaps, smearing wet against his boxers, already making a mess of himself, but he doesn’t go down. Dean growls, opens his mouth wide over Sam’s shoulder and bites, hard enough for Sam to feel the pin pricks of pressure, but not to break skin, and Sam gasps, heat racing through his body, hips rolling. He tips forward, heart racing as he pushes off his boxers and settles his weight onto his hands, spreads his legs.

Dean chest rumbles as he slides over Sam, tall enough that he doesn’t have to mount him, Sam tucking up right under him with his legs spread this wide. Dean’s cock smears a slick trail up the inside of Sam’s thigh and Sam’s trembling arms give way and he sinks to his elbows, ass offered up. He can smell a heady, animal musk and looks down the the length of his body, past his own flushed and aching dick to see the obscene weight of Dean’s drooling cock hang between his thighs. Dean lines up, front paws braced against the ground, legs caging Sam in and the thick barrel of his chest pressing into his back.

The head of his cock slots between Sam’s cheeks, smearing across his skin, until it catches on his rim. Sam has a half-lucid moment to think there’s no way he can take it without prep, it’ll break him apart, but his mouth falls open on a stuttered gasp when Dean rolls his hips and Sam’s hole parts for the tip. Dean feeds it to him with incremental rolls of his hips, his dick so much hotter than Sam’s body that he can feel every inch of it sliding in, compelling his insides to open until he’s fully sheathed, and Sam’s aching for more.

Dean withdraws nearly all the way and then slams back in, setting up a brutal pace that shakes the moans in Sam’s throat. He fucks with animal intensity, hips hammering into Sam, legs squeezing Sam’s ribs so that Sam can hardly move or breathe as Dean fucks his insides soft and Sam’s head empties and his world narrows until all he can see, and smell, and feel is what Dean gives him. Dean’s knot swells, tugging against Sam’s rim on every thrust, and Sam wants, God he needs it so bad. He spreads his his legs, cants his hips and cries out at the slick punch of the knot slipping inside. His balls draw up and pleasure zings along his nerves from the fucked-out stretch of his rim to the heavy bob of his dick and Sam comes, a high, hurt sound catching in his throat.

Dean guides them down until Sam is half on his side, hips twisted so Dean stays deep inside him, keeps his leverage to grind into Sam. The edge of his knot presses relentlessly against Sam’s prostate. Sharp bolts of pleasure making his still hard cock jump and leak, like he didn’t just come, like he’s topped up and overflowing. And he is, Dean coming inside of him in heavy pulses, marking him up inside right where Sam needs it, filling him up endlessly, so much of it that it leaks out of him, forced out as he clenches helplessly around the knot. Every grind making him whine and shiver, forcing more out of him until his thighs and dick are both filthy slick and dripping.

Sam hides his face in the crook of his elbow, hand coming up to clutch at the fur of Dean’s neck. His other hand sliding down to his aching dick, pressing it against his belly, and rubbing his palm over the come-slick head until he’s shaking and sobbing and spilling into the dirt. The world goes hazy after that, and Sam slips into darkness with Dean still tied inside him.

...

Sam comes back to himself sometime later, naked but for his rucked up t-shirt and the blanket haphazardly pulled over him, the corner still hanging from the Impala’s back seat. His body is warm, like when he stretches after a satisfying run, strong and powerful. He should be ashamed, horrified maybe, but he feels solid. That’s the most unsettling thing, how good he feels. That deep ache satisfied.

He scrubs a hand over his face and sits up. Dean has managed to use the wedge of his shoulders to push back part of the barn door and he sits there, outside the threshold, looking out over the rolling hills and the burnt landscape, all of him bathed in silver light. Sam wraps his arms around his knees and waits for the fear or the panic to come. It doesn’t. All he can think about is the moment he found out the wolf was Dean, underneath the anger, that wave of relief. But Dean could have spared him all that confusion, all the fear that he was failing him on that first night and Sam still doesn’t understand why he didn’t.

Sam shifts, and a sudden slip of wetness behind him makes him blush. He’s leaking. He grabs his boxers from the heap of his clothes, puts them on, and pads over to the opened door. Dean’s shoulders tense, ears tipping back as Sam approaches. Sam slips through the gap and makes his way over the water pump. Sam hesitates with his hands on the waistband of his boxers before he shucks them and his t-shirt off. Dean tenses and turns away, giving Sam privacy as he gets the pump going. The water is cold and makes his skin break out in goosebumps. He cleans himself thoroughly, ducking his head behind the fall of his hair as he washes away the wolf’s come. When he’s done, he slips his boxers back on and sits on his haunches. The light from the full moon soaks into him, warms him like sunshine. There is a power to it that still calls to Sam. He closes his eyes and tips his head back and breathes, the forest smell is still there and for the first time, Sam wonders if what he is smelling isn’t the forest from his dreams at all, but a new and sharper sense of smell that can detect the latent fertility of the dry prairie soil.

And it isn’t just smell. A meadow vole scurries through the dry grass on the other side of the barn. Dean shifts his weight, the shush of his fur is loud in Sam’s ears, Dean’s heartbeat spikes, fast and strong. When Sam opens his eyes, Dean has given up all pretense of privacy and is staring straight at Sam. He’s still tense, his ears still half-cocked and Sam spares a moment to be grateful that Dean has not mastered this body well enough to hide what he’s feeling from Sam. Dean has always been a strange and compelling mix of open book and hard to read. Over the years Sam has learned to translate much of his body language, but when Dean sets his mind to keeping something from him, he usually succeeds.

“Come here,” Sam says. “You’ve got to be thirsty.” Dean jolts, surprised by the offer but he doesn’t move. Sam rolls his eyes. “Or you could drink water from the dirt.”

Dean grumbles, but he comes over. Sam works the pump a few times and then crouches down to catch the flow in his cupped palms. Dean laps from his hands, watching Sam from under his brow, eyes filled with worry.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asks. He stands up to work the pump again, carefully doesn’t look at Dean.

Sam gets his hands back under the water, but Dean doesn’t drink, he stares at the water falling into Sam’s hands until the trickle dies out. Sam sighs and lets the water fall from his hands down into the muddy pool at his feet.

Dean presses his paw into the mud so it sinks deep and then steps back.

“I don’t...” Sam starts, but then he sees it. Dean’s paw print is right next to his own handprint. They’re nearly the same size, but so different. “We weren’t the same?” Sam tries, but Dean looks at him expectantly and Sam looks again. At the shape of the track, the claws and the deep-set imprint of the pads. Like this, not knowing it was Dean who made it, anyone would look at these prints and see a human and an animal.

“You were, what, embarrassed? Oh.” Because it wasn’t embarrassment, Sam knows Dean better than that. The things that eat at him are guilt and shame, and this was shame. He changed and Sam didn’t. He was an animal and Sam wasn’t. Sam would never see it that way, but Dean might. Sam sits down hard and wraps his arms around his knees. Sometimes it feels like Dean is so set on not believing in himself that it comes right back around to him not believing in Sam.

“You’ve got to know I wouldn’t have judged you. I just wanted to know you were ok.”

Dean huffs and shakes his head, growl building in his throat.

“That wasn’t it?” Sam guesses. Dean nods, sharp and pointed. “So what else was it?”

Dean steps right into Sam’s space, slides his muzzle along Sam’s shoulder until his nose presses into the crook of Sam’s neck. Sam sighs and his eyes flutter shut, head tipping back to give Dean more room as a shiver races down his spine. All of it an automatic impulse, beyond thought or control, an echo of the inescapable draw that put Sam on his knees.

“You felt that,” Sam asks, “from the beginning?”

Dean nods, jaw tense. To feel that way about Sam in that body, not knowing that Sam would feel it too, it must have scared him, made him feel monstrous. Sam doesn’t want to punish Dean for that.

“Ok,” Sam says, “Ok. Everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve faced… this is weird, even for us. What happened, happened. There’s nothing we could do, so we need to move on, focus on finding Jack.”

Dean follows Sam back to the barn, stationing himself outside the doorway. Sam grabs the blanket and his sleeping bag and sets them up at the threshold to the barn. He unzips the sleeping bag, laying it flat on the ground so it’s wide enough for both of them, but Dean stays out in the moonlight with his back to Sam. Sam lays down on his side, staring into the dark barn and slipping into sleep. When Sam wakes up to the weak dawn light, his face is buried in the thick ruff of fur at Dean’s neck.

### ...

Sam has just finished packing up his bag and putting the Impala back to rights when Dean wuffs from the open door. Sam follows him out, rolling the door closed behind him. Dean nudges his head into the back of Sam’s knee, forcing him to take a step forward and then trots around to the side of the barn.

The owl is sitting on the fence, huge yellow eyes focused on Sam, and now that Sam has his first proper look at it, he can see the light inside, as strong and steady as Dean’s. The owl bobs its head and then spreads its massive wings and takes off, gliding low over the fields and away to the north.

“I think we’re supposed to follow it.”

Dean snorts from where he’s already walking into the grass. He leaps over the fence with ease and turns back, barking when he sees Sam still standing there. Sam waits a moment longer, looking back through the crack in the door to see the sleek lines of the Impala where they melt into the gloom of the barn. Something tugs at him, the idea that he won’t come back this way settling into his bones.

Dean barks again, sharper this time and Sam shakes off the feeling. He hops the fence and jogs until he can fall in at Dean’s side, the owl is a pale shadow in the early morning light as it soars across the fields. The compass and map stay tucked in Sam’s bag. He has a feeling that he couldn’t get lost now if he tried.

They find him just past noon, sitting cross-legged on a boulder, his back to them as he looks out over a stretch of prairie bordered by trees. The owl lands on the low branch of the Burr Oak that shades Jack, hooting softly.

“Hello,” Jack says, and Sam knows he isn’t talking to the owl.

Dean’s hackles go up immediately, and he crouches low to the ground, muscles coiled and ready to pounce. Sam has only a moment to fear that they never talked about how this was going to go, that he should have made sure Dean was going to give Sam time to figure out what happened before he does anything stupid, before Jack is turning to face them.

“Hey, Jack. It’s been awhile.” Sam says, Jack cocks his head and blinks, his hair casting dark shadows over his eyes. “We’ve been looking for you. We’ve-I’ve been worried.”

“I had to go. I needed to learn how to use my powers on my own.” Jack says.

“Is that what happened with the storm?” Sam asks, taking a careful step forward. “Was that you?’’

“No. Yes, I…” Jack stops and looks down, hair falling across his face. “My mother said she thought I would be amazing, that I would make the world a better place.” Jack looks up again, catches Sam’s eye. “Is this better?”

Sam’s stomach drops like a stone. For a fraction of a moment, the world opens up beneath his feet and the roiling smoke rises toward him, but Sam pushes it away, because the closer he looks at Jack, the more he notices the desperate look in his eyes.

“Do you think it's better?” Sam asks, following his hunch.

Jack frowns, considers the question before answering. “I think there is less pain. People aren’t trying to hurt each other on purpose anymore. They’re only doing what their instincts tell them.”

“And what about their souls,” Sam asks, “What happens to them.”

“I don’t know,” Jack says, eyes wide, voice gaining volume, “I didn’t try to… I didn’t mean-” he breaks off, looks at Sam helplessly.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, and we can figure it out together, ok?”

“Ok,” Jack says. “I met this girl, she was very sad and angry and she told me about her stepfather…” Jack trails off, a bewildered look on his face and Sam gets a sinking feeling that he knows where this is going. “She couldn’t even say it out loud, but I saw it. All the times he hurt her, the way he smiled after. She was right, he was a monster. And she wanted people to see him for what he was, and she wanted to fly away.” Jack looks to the owl and Sam puts two and two together.

“Sam, I...” Jack slides off the rock. Dean growls low in his throat and Jack stops, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. “It was an accident.” He blurts. “I wanted to help her so bad, I wanted to give her what she needed and it all just exploded out of me. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” His eyes flicker back to Dean, and he swallows thickly. “Is this what you were waiting for? Are you going to kill me now?”

Dean flinches back, finally slipping from his attack posture to sit heavily on his haunches.

“I know what it’s like, to think you’re doing something good and have it go wrong,” Sam says, drawing Jacks attention back to him. “But I fixed it, and you can too.”

Jack's eyes dart back over to Dean, and his hand starts to beat against his thigh, he’s ramping up for another outburst and he’s not hearing Sam because it isn't Sam he needs to hear.

"It's going to be ok, Jack," Sam says, and crouches down next to Dean. Dean shoots Sam a questioning look and Sam grabs his face, hooking his fingers behind his jaw and dragging him forward until he can bump their foreheads together.

"I know we don’t always agree on how to handle things, but I know you're going to do the right thing. Just say what you're thinking and remember that he didn't ask for this either." Dean grumbles a confused sound, but Sam smiles and rubs his thumbs over Dean’s cheeks.

"You'll do fine," Sam says and reaches for the amulet’s chord, for a heart-stopping moment he can't feel it, but then his fingers bump against it and he pulls it over his head, and straight down over Dean’s. For a long moment nothing happens and Sam clenches his eyes shut and prays for it to work. Dean needs to be human and Sam will change, but he knows what he’ll become and he isn’t afraid.

It starts as a tingle in his fingertips, and then every follicle of hair on his body aches as though he has a fever. He steps back from Dean and drops the pack. He kicks off his boots and pulls his shirts over his head as his fingers stiffen and his nails extend into claws.

"Sam?" Jack asks, eyes wide.

Dean whimpers and tries to step forward but a ripple passes through his muscles and he freezes up. Sam loses track of the change then, gets lost in the stretch and crack of his bones and when he opens his eyes, he's staring at his own tawny paws, and Dean is crouching down beside him, naked in his human skin.

"Sammy," Dean says, voice cracking, "What did you do?" He strokes his hand up Sam's muzzle and over his head, thumbing the edge of one ear. Sam whuffs in response and struggles to his feet.

Sam eyes Dean up un down and then raises his brow. Dean blushes at his nakedness and grabs for Sam's discarded jeans. He can't zip them up all the way, and they bunch over his bare feet, but they keep him decent.

Dean turns to Jack then, and squares his shoulders. "The second it happened, I knew it was you. You're the only thing in the world strong enough to do it. What I didn’t know is why you did it. You remember what I said to you before you left the bunker?"

Jack looks down and nods. “You said I wasn’t a monster.”

“That’s right,” Dean says, and ducks his head to catch Jack’s eyes. “What you did, why you did it? I get it. I would have done something, too. Difference is I don’t have the power to remake the universe. You’re not a monster, Jack, but you did mess up. Now, you‘ve got to step up and make it right.”

“But I don’t know how."

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean says, “you’ve got to try.”

“Is this what you want?” Jack asks, and holds his hand out to the owl. She nudges her beak against his knuckles, nibbles gently at his fingers.

“Ok,” Jack says, “I’ll try.”

He closes his eyes and Dean steps closer to Sam, sinking his fingers deep into Sam’s fur. Jack’s eyes snap open, glowing gold and the world flashes white.

...

The first thing Sam hears is the quiet clink of glass and the soft hush of voices blurring together. When he opens his eyes, he’s staring down into his coffee at the colorless reflection of his own face. The diner is just as he remembers it, Sherrie in the corner with her friend. The waitress making small talk as she refills coffee on her way back to the counter.

He pulls out his phone to check the time and date and it rings in his hand, Dean’s name flashing across the screen.

“Sam,” Dean says, bark of command in his voice like he gets mid hunt. Sam’s heart starts racing the second he hears it. “You ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m back in the diner.” Sam leans into the phone, trying to keep the hysteria tinged wonder out of his voice. “It’s like nothing happened. You?”

“Yeah,” Dean sighs, “Yeah, I’m good.”

Sam’s sighs too, leaning back in the chair and reaching up to clutch the amulet, but it isn’t there. He checks his coat pocket next, but it isn’t there, either.

“Wait, Dean, do you have it?” Sam asks, fingers clenching around the phone. If he lost it after all this time, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“Have what?”

“The amulet,” Sam says, “I put it on you when we were talking to Jack. Please tell me you have it.”

“Huh, so that’s what you were doing.”

“Dean?” Sam asks.

“Listen, I’m going to go to that town, see if I can find Jack and the girl,” Dean says and, his voice is gruff and all business and then he hangs up.

“Guess I’ll take care of Doc Brown,” Sam say, staring at the blank screen of his phone. He switches to his GPS app, and clicks on Dean’s icon, lets out a breath when he sees it tracking down Route 27.

An hour later Sam is still turning Dean’s words over in his head. _So that’s what you were doing._ He checks his duffel and then Dean’s for the amulet, but the thing is, he doesn’t carry it around anymore. He had it stashed in his bag for years until they settled in the bunker and then he tucked it away in his box with everything else important. Now that Dean knows about it, too, they keep it on one of the shelves in the library. There’s no reason for him to have had it.

Dean calls again a few hours later and Sam fumbles the phone in his haste to answer, “Did you find them?”

“They were both gone. Found the stepfather though, had a few words.” Dean’s voice is dark and loaded and Sam doesn’t bother to examine his own feeling of satisfaction at hearing it.

“Good,” Sam says and then his stomach twists with nervousness, because he has to ask. “I didn’t have the amulet, did I?” Dean is quiet for so long that Sam checks to make sure they’re still connected.

“I never saw you with it,” Dean sighs, “You kept grabbing at your throat, but there wasn’t anything there. I wondered what was going on but in that shit storm of strange, I didn’t give it much thought, and it’s not like I could ask.”

“But I thought it was what kept me from changing. I thought I put it on you and that’s why you changed back.” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes out slow, “Then how did I…”

“Stay as human as you did,” Dean finishes. “I’ve got a theory on that. I think your powers got woken up.” Dean pauses and Sam knows they’re both thinking of his yellow eyes. “I saw you fight off the change. Maybe you didn’t change all the way because you didn’t want to.”

Sam remembers jumping up on the bench when the lightning zipped into the dinner, how he stood frozen in shock, waiting for the next thing to happen. But if the asphalt, walls, and a tile floor didn’t stop it, why would a vinyl booth? If he was hit then, like everyone else then he would have already been affected when he conjured up the amulet as some talisman to help protect himself. It's possible.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean says. “You kinda saved the world again, let’s call it a win.”

“Yeah, ok,” Sam says, "but I think it was a team effort."

“About what happened,” Dean coughs and clears his throat, and Sam holds his breath “What we did, I…” Dean trails off and his sharp exhale is clear over the line as he gives up. “I’m on my way back. It’ll probably be five or six hours. Are you going to be there?”

Sam knows what Dean is afraid of, that what happened between them was going to be too much to face. He was afraid too, but hearing that same worry in Dean’s voice settles something in him, makes him believe that it's going to be ok.

“Still got a ghost to lay to rest, don’t I,” Sam says.

“Guess you do.” Dean says and the tension is gone from his voice.

…

Grave digging alone is back-breaking work, but Sam gets the job done in a couple of hours and heads back to the motel. Dean still isn’t back, so Sam heads straight for the shower, not even bothering to turn on a light. The shower pounds out the ache in Sam’s muscles, but it can’t keep his mind quiet the way the physical work of grave digging did. He can’t help but think about the fact that he slept with his brother, or how good it felt. How being with the wolf that first time felt like discovering something that already lived inside of him, and it wasn’t about the wolf’s body, it was about Sam letting go and getting something he wanted, it was about Dean even though he didn’t know it at the time.

He thought about it some when he was a kid, but he wrote it off as the feverish hormonal fantasies of an isolated kid and buried it deep. Now it’s back and he doesn’t know what to do with it. Sam gets out of the shower and dries off, brushing his fingers through his unruly hair. He wraps a towel around his waist, holding it closed with one hand as he walks out into the main room. The motel room door bursts open, Dean standing there, panting, eyes searching frantically until they land on Sam where he stands stunned and dripping on the carpet.

“You’re here,” Dean says, barely loud enough for Sam to hear, and Sam realizes how empty the motel room must have looked from outside, dark but for the light from the bathroom.

This is the part where they normally look away, when one or both of them is feeling too much, but Dean stands there in the doorway, eyes flickering up and down Sam’s body as he licks his lips. Sam’s seen Dean do that before and he’s felt the answering tightness in his chest, but he never put it into this context and now he wonders how he missed it. The thought makes his neck flush and Sam’s hand clenches on the towel.

Dean kicks the door shut and closes the distance between them in three big strides and then he kisses Sam, rising up onto his toes to press his lips against Sam’s in a plush side that leaves Sam shaking. Dean pulls back and stares at Sam like he’s waiting for judgement. It’s all Sam can do to breathe, let alone speak, but he can’t help but lick his lips, hoping for a taste of Dean.

Dean’s eyes widen a fraction and then go dark, pupils expanding. “Sam,” he says and lays his hand over top Sam’s on the towel, fingers sliding down, bumping over his knuckles to slot into the grooves between his fingers. He rubs his fingers there, back and forth, coaxing Sam’s fingers to loosen until the towel slips from his grasp and falls to the floor.

They’ve hardly even touched and Sam’s chest is already heaving as he stands naked before Dean. It can’t be this easy, Sam’s sure of it, but then Dean rises up onto his toes and kisses him again. The second his  tongue slicks across Sam’s lips, something in Sam breaks free and he grabs Dean’s face with both hands pulling him into a wild and filthy kiss. Dean goes with it, walking backwards toward the beds. But after a few moments he slows it down again, turning the kisses deep and slow and devastating. This must be how Dean won over his past flings, with a kiss so sweet and thorough, so good that Sam can barely think about anything else.

“Anything you want,” Dean says between gasps and nips at Sam’s lower lip, “Next time, anything you want, I swear. But this time…” Dean sinks his hand in Sam’s hair, uses his grip to tilt Sam’s head back and press his lips against Sam’s throat, “let me back in.”

Want shivers down Sam's spine. “Yeah, do it,” he gasps. He slips his hands under Deans shirt and pets up the broad expanse of his back. Dean slips out of his arms and tosses his shirt across the room, kicking off his boots and socks. He fishes through the side pocket of his duffel, pulling out the lube and one of the expired condoms. He looks from the condom to Sam, and when Sam doesn’t protest, he drops it back into the bag. Sam settles himself on the bed, naked and hard with one knee bent up in invitation.

“Jesus,” Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth, “You don’t know how long I…” His eyes snap to Sam, like he revealed some terrible secret, but Sam doesn’t care, he only cares that they’re on the same page now.

“Then why am I still waiting?” Sam says and lets his legs fall open.

“Fuck,” Dean says and tosses the lube on the bed and skins out of his jeans and boxers. He crawls up between Sam’s legs, propping himself up on one arm and getting back to the business of kissing Sam stupid.

Dean settles back on his knees, running his hands up and down Sam’s twitching thighs and opens the lube. He takes his time stretching Sam, watching his reactions as each finger added makes the stretch better, reaches new places inside of him, and makes him squirm. Dean fucks him with three fingers until Sam grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him up, arms wrapping around him. Dean slips his fingers out, using what lube is left on them to slick up his cock. He pushes in on one long, slow thrust while Sam digs his fingers into Dean’s ass urging him forward.

“You don’t know how bad I bad I needed it,” Dean whispers, rolling his hips into Sam, fat cock splitting him open, “How good you felt squeezing on my...my knot.”

“Oh, fuck.” Sam shivers so hard he almost unseats Dean.

Dean pushes in closer working his mouth along Sam’s jaw and then back to his lips. “This is better.”

Dean's right, it's better. The taste of Dean on his tongue makes Sam wild, makes him want more, want everything. He hooks an ankle around Dean’s leg and flips them, arching his back to keep Dean seated inside. Dean stares up at him, wide-eyed with wonder, as Sam rolls his hips, churning Dean inside of him. Dean runs his hands up Sam’s chest, palms scraping over his nipples, the shocky pleasure makes Sam throw his head back and work his hips in smooth circles, rising a few inches on Dean’s cock only to slide back down, holding himself open on it, keeping himself full.

“C’mere,” Dean says, hand sliding up to cup Sam’s neck and drag him down into more drugging kisses. Sam rests his forearms on either side of Dean’s head and curls into him, starts riding him properly. Dean grunts, plants feet on the mattress and thrusts up into Sam. They move together with machine precision. Finding a rhythm that has them both gasping and pulling each other closer. Dean shifts his angle until he finds Sam’s prostate, Sam making little punched out groans that Dean eats from his mouth.

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean says and grabs his cock, slick with precome, and strokes him fast and hard, palm twisting over the head. The stretch and the pull is too much and Sam cries out, back arching as he comes, unloading all over Dean’s knuckles. Sam shivers as Dean groans and thrusts harder into him, losing control as he gets closer. Sam holds himself still, makes himself soft for the last of Dean’s ragged thrusts. Dean comes with a quiet groan that he presses into the side of Sam’s head. Sam stays tucked into the crook of Dean’s neck until the open air chills the sweat on his back.

Sam pulls carefully off Dean and falls back into the pillows beside him and they both catch their breath. Dean groans, rolls to the edge of the bed and heads to the bathroom. He saunters back into the room, still naked, and tosses Sam a towel to clean up with. When Sam finishes, he looks up to find Dean stretching out his back, pretending like he wasn’t watching, smug little smile tipped toward the ceiling.

“Look at you,” Sam says, “can practically see your tail wagging.” Dean snaps a look at Sam wide-eyed and soft-mouthed in shock and Sam busts out laughing.

“Oh, fuck you,” Dean says and tackles Sam to the mattress, palms sliding down his arms to grab his wrists and pin them to the pillows by his head. “Did you forget you had a tail just like me for a minute there?”

“No, I didn’t forget.” Sam couldn’t forget that, what it means to him that they were the same in the end. His voice must give him away, because the humor fades from Dean’s face, his eyes searching Sam’s for long moments. His breath catches in his throat and his hands abandon Sam’s wrists to sink into his hair. Sam’s mouth falls open for the slick slide of Dean’s tongue as he kisses Sam soft and deep. When he pulls away, Sam’s pulse throbs in his tender lips. Dean rolls off him, sprawling out on the other half of the bed.

“What would you have done? If we couldn’t find Jack or he couldn’t fix it.” Dean says, voice soft as he stares at the ceiling, can’t even look at Sam which means it’s important.

If Jack couldn’t fix it and there was no other way, if Dean was stuck in the wolf’s body and Sam still human, what would he have done? The answer smells of spring rain and rich soil. Sam can see it so clearly still, it echoes in his bones, the two of them, powerful and sleek, running tirelessly through the woods on softly padded feet. That’s what Sam would choose, even if it meant giving up on everything else.

“We could have gone anywhere,” Sam says. “We could have run forever.”

Beside him, Dean lets out a slow breath, muscles relaxing and body sinking deeper into the mattress. He bumps his knuckles up against Sam’s, that one point of contact enough to set his heart beating wildly in his chest. Sam has to turn his head away because he is overflowing and he doesn’t know what’s showing on his face. What he does know, with a new and unshakable certainty, is that they will always find each other, no matter what skin they’re in.


End file.
